The Sierra Club, which offers a number of tours in addition to its conservation activities, is getting into the business of volunteer vacations in the US. There is, for example, a vegetation restoration project on the Grand Canyon’s southern rim in June; this costs $425 for six days, and includes food and accommodation.

Or, you can get involved in Family Fun Trail Work in Colorado in August, which costs $395 per adult and $295 per child for six days. Volunteers help create trails and “creature caves” – winter habitats for small animals. For this project, the minimum age is seven and participants need to bring their own camping equipment.

Not all of the volunteer vacations are oriented towards families, but this is a good place to start. I don’t have children, and to be honest, I don’t always “get” how they think and what they like, but this seems like volunteer work they might enjoy, in contrast to, say, helping sterilize stray dogs in India or teaching English.

The Sierra Club organizes around 90 volunteer vacations, or service trips per year, and the total amount of volunteer time is around 27,000 hours – not too shabby! They report that in addition to feeling connected to the area where they’ve worked, volunteers have access to park rangers, who of course know the areas well, and frequently form friendships with like-minded people - other volunteers.

I’ve linked mainly to the volunteer pages, but if conservation in the US interests you, have a look at the main Sierra Club page. I should also once again say thank you to About.com’s AdventureTravel page for mentioning the Sierra Club.