Site Location:

Travelers' Rest Connection
6717 Highway 12 West,
Lolo, MT 59847

Terms of Service:

Start Date: 6/15/2026

End Date: 8/23/2026

AmeriCorps Slot Classification: Minimum-Time

Purpose:

• Approximately 8 - 10% of adults in Ravalli County and 10 - 12% of adults in Missoula County live below the poverty line. Poverty on the nearby Flathead Reservation, home to the Selis, Qlispe, and Kootenai people, affects more than 20% of the adult population. Travelers' Rest State Park provides opportunities for Indigenous artisans to demonstrate and sell their work. The Park also brings visitors from across the country, encouraging tourist spending at restaurants, breweries, gas stations, and lodging in Lolo and beyond. By expanding the audience for park programs through social media, marketing, and outreach, the VISTA position can help increase income for local business owners and employment opportunities at those businesses.
• Travelers' Rest Connection has just one one part-time employee - its Executive Director. Any expansion of program revenue or fundraising can help build capacity to hire additional staff. By promoting event participation, the VISTA member can increase demand for programs and revenue, ultimately resulting in greater capacity to develop new programs.
• Community Outreach - the VISTA member will assemble all materials to promote park events at Missoula's Clark Fork River Market, Downtown Tonight, Out to Lunch, River City Roots Fest, and other community festivals. Indigenous Demonstration Days: the VISTA member will coordinate with Indigenous artists to demonstrate traditional skills to park visitors.
• Social Media/Marketing: the VISTA will promote park events and programs through posts on Facebook and Instagram as well as creating flyers or other advertisements.
• Fundraising Events: the VISTA will help promote A Taste of the 19th Century, an annual fundraising dinner. Interpretation: the VISTA will be part of the planning team for interpretive demonstrations at the first annual Lolo Trail Run.

Description of Duties:

The Summer Associate will focus on capacity-building activities that produce internal planning resources, documentation tools, and community engagement materials. Duties may include compiling labor market research summaries, developing workforce resource inventories, creating community asset maps, organizing environmental data sets, drafting partnership coordination frameworks, designing planning templates and resource guides, and assisting with public-facing informational workshops, outreach campaigns, or site observations. Activities are designed to strengthen host organizations’ capacity, guide long-term workforce and environmental program development, provide tangible connections between planning tools and community needs, and support measurable outcomes in workforce access, environmental stewardship, and community engagement.

Travelers' Rest State Park is located in Lolo, Montana about 10 miles from the larger city of Missoula. Travelers' Rest Connection supports the park through outreach, advocacy, and educational experiences connecting the past to the future. An AmeriCorps VISTA position at Travelers' Rest will provide opportunities to learn new skills in event planning, interpretation, and marketing/outreach. The VISTA will represent Travelers' Rest at a variety of community events like farmers' markets and festivals, leading hands-on history activities and distributing information about the park and programs. They will coordinate demonstration days with Indigenous artists at Travelers' Rest State Park. The VISTA will also create a portfolio of social media posts and event flyers to expand audiences for public programs and fundraising events.

Qualifications:

• Car recommended;
• Desired education level: Some College
• Language requirement: English
• United States citizen, United States national, or a lawful permanent resident alien
• At least 18 years of age
• Has received a high school diploma or equivalency certificate; or has not dropped out of elementary or secondary school to enroll as an AmeriCorps participant, and agrees to obtain a high school diploma or its equivalent prior to using the education award
• Agrees to provide information to establish eligibility and to complete a National Service Criminal History Check.

Physical Requirements:

Conservation Legacy is committed to the full inclusion of all qualified individuals and will ensure that persons with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodations to perform essential functions. Some positions may require periodic overnight travel, nontraditional hours, ability to move across varied terrain, use program-specific tools and a range of technology on an infrequent or frequent basis. Exerting up to 25 pounds of force occasionally to lift, carry, push, pull, or otherwise move objects. Ability to safely drive an organizational vehicle may also be required for some positions. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during application or recruiting process, please send a request to the hiring manager.

Time Requirements:

• Typically, this position is expected to serve full-time, 35-40 hours per week, but exact service schedules may vary. A half hour lunch break will not be counted towards AmeriCorps service
• Permits attendance at school during off hours;
• Permits working at another job during off hours;

Orientation and Training:

• Member will receive an orientation that includes training on AmeriCorps prohibited and unallowable activities.
• Member will receive a Virtual Member Orientation (VMO) from VISTA on their first day of service.

Benefits:

• Segal AmeriCorps Education Award of $1,565.08
• Living Allowance of $957.46 (taxable) every other week.
• Healthcare Coverage if Eligible
• Childcare Coverage if Eligible
• Loan forbearance if Eligible
• Interest Payments if Eligible
• Recreational Opportunities
• Professional Development Opportunities

Evaluation and Reporting:

As an AmeriCorps VISTA Summer Associate, performance will be evaluated on whether the Summer Associate has completed the required number of hours, whether the Summer Associate has satisfactorily completed assignments, and if the Summer Associate has met other performance criteria that were clearly communicated at the beginning of the term of service.

Reporting requirements include, but are not limited to, bi-weekly timesheets and accomplishment tracking.