A few months into my RAship, I felt that I was the one asking for guidance and questions and now I get referred to for answers. Regardless of the questions being asked, I feel a sense of importance that people on the forest can refer to me or ask me for help. I am always available for help and eager to learn more!

In the recent weeks, I’ve been working on a few different projects. These specific projects have been weeks to months long processes with correspondence of multiple people. I’ve been working closely with Recreation.gov, being involved in the Hub and speaking with different employees. When I was younger, my family took annual camping trips and day trips to various areas heavily utilizing Recreation.gov. As someone who has been on the user side of recreation.gov, I feel like it has helped me to include information on our recreation sites that I would have appreciated as a user. I was able to implement Scan & Pay at a handful of our campgrounds, which will be live Spring of 2025! This new implementation is crucial to our forest funding, it will now allow users to pay for a campground on their phone with or without service. Considering we are in a heavily digital world with cash not being exchanged as consistently as before, having the option to pay with a card on first come first serve sites is extremely useful.

As always, I am extremely grateful for this opportunity, and I am excited to see what other projects I can get into with this new extension!

*Photo included was taken by USFS employee