If your national park interests tend to focus on Civil War sites, you'll have a chance later this month to help out the staff at Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historical Park in Virginia.

The National Park Service and the Cedar Creek Battlefield Foundation are seeking volunteers to complete work projects being planned for "Park Day" on Saturday, March 28th. This annual hands-on preservation event, created and sponsored by the Civil War Trust, brings history enthusiasts nationwide together in an effort to help keep our heritage not only preserved, but pristine. Started in 1996, battlefields and historic sites across the country take part in Park Day to complete maintenance projects large and small.

At Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historical Park, both the National Park Service and the Cedar Creek Battlefield Foundation are organizing different maintenance projects on their properties. These projects will both preserve historic resources and properly prepare them for the upcoming visitor season.

The Park Service will have volunteers perform a variety of tasks associated with the newly opened trail to the 8th Vermont Monument. Work will include trail improvement, trash removal, and fence work. Volunteers are being asked to bring work gloves, a shovel or rake, and to wear sturdy work boots. Water and safety equipment will be provided by the park. The work project will last from 8 a.m. to noon. For planning purposes, prospective volunteers are being asked to pre-register by Saturday, March 21st. For more information, or to register, call (540) 869-3051.

Volunteers will gather at the Visitor Contact Station (7712 Main Street, Middletown, Virginia) at 8 a.m. on March 28th and then carpool to the project site. After the work project, the National Park Service will offer a ranger program on the role of the 8th Vermont Regiment at Cedar Creek.

The Cedar Creek Battlefield Foundation's Park Day projects include trail maintenance along the 19th Corps trenches, fence repairs, maintenance and trash pickup around the Heater House property and other items as needed. Volunteers are asked to bring gloves.

Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historical Park and its partners are currently in the process of planning new trails in the park, along with other visitor infrastructure, such as signage and interpretive waysides. These projects will open up preserved tracts of land within the park that have previously been inaccessible to visitors.

"Park Day is a wonderful opportunity for local citizens, history enthusiasts and supporters of our national parks, to take an active part in preserving the historic resources of Cedar Creek and Belle Grove and to make them more accessible to the public," said site manager Amy Bracewell. "Both the National Park Service and the Cedar Creek Battlefield Foundation welcome everyone who would like to volunteer and help take care of the national park in their own back yard."