A rising tradition associated with the Martin Luther King holiday is the pledge to volunteer to do something to make your community a better place to live.  Here on the Mohawk Towpath Byway we want to make it easy to find an opportunity to volunteer.  In fact, last year more than 190 residents along the Mohawk Towpath Byway contributed 1400 person hours of volunteer time valued at more than $29,750.  This in-kind service is used, in part, as a local match for a number of funding grants.

What are some of these opportunities?

1. Clutes Dry Dock, Clifton Park

• Landscape clearing to open up the view of the historic dry dock community site.
• Clearing the historic 1824 canal towpath close to Riverview Road.  The trail has become over grown over the last several years.
• Clearing along the historic canal towpath reconstruction project underway as a joint project with town of Halfmoon.   – contact Jennifer Viggiani, 371-6651

2. Adopt a roadside in your area:

• From Clamsteam Tavern, Halfmoon west on Riverview Road to VanVranken Road , Clifton Park
• Riverview Road from the hamlet of Vischer Ferry west to Sugar Hill Road
• Riverview Road from Droms Road west to Route 146
• Also a number of segments in Waterford, Cohoes, Colonie, and Schenectady – contact your local highway department.

3. Legal Assistance:

• Review and evaluate the Mohawk Towpath Scenic Byway Coalition’s risk management policies.
• Review and evaluate the Mohawk Towpath Scenic Byway Coalition’s internal controls.
• Assist in fostering a memorandum of understanding with each of our municipal and commercial partners.  Contact Eric Hamilton 371-7548.

4.  Assist with a baseline traffic count on the Byway.

• Includes a fun training session.
• We will use the traffic count on the Cohoes – Crescent Road as a model.  Contact Eric Hamilton 371-7548.

5. Take pictures of people enjoying the Byway. Even in the winter there are activities going on: snow shoeing, cross country skiing, skating, snowmobiling, ice fishing, sledding.  Pictures help us tell the story of the Byway and of life along the waterway west.

These are only a few of the many ideas.  Even though this is not the best time of the year for volunteering on the Byway you can still organize an activity for when the weather changes and the first peepers start calling and the first skunk cabbage emerges.  The whole idea is to make our community a better place to live.  A better place to live will be a better place to visit: the Mohawk Towpath Byway.  Volunteer today and remember Martin Luther King.