ChiPride Volunteering + Friends of the Forest – LaBagh Woods

ChiPride Volunteering + Friends of the Forest Preserves – LaBagh Woods

When: Sunday, September 14th, 2025
Time: 9:00 am – 12:00 pm
Location: LaBagh Woods – N. Cicero Ave., N of W. Foster Ave., Chicago, IL 60630

Total Spots Available: 20

Description: Join LGBTQ+ and Ally Volunteers as we partner with Friends of the Forest Preserves on Chicago’s Northwest Side! Volunteers will perform a variety of tasks that will include removing invasive species, seed collecting, and potentially helping to care for some native plant areas. 

Volunteers should wear weather appropriate attire suitable for working in a forest setting. We suggest these additional items:

• Insect repellant
• Sunscreen
• Hat and/or sunglasses
• Water and snacks to stay hydrated and energized

Friends of the Forest Preserves will provide all work items on site (gloves, trowels, clippers, etc.)

When you enter the LaBagh Woods Forest Preserve entrance off N. Cicero Ave., follow the drive and look for signs directing “volunteers” to the appropriate location.

Friends of the Forest Preserves Mission: Long before there was a Cook County, this region where tallgrass prairie meets eastern forest was home to a breathtaking mosaic of landscapes. By the turn of the 20th century, with a great city growing here, civic leaders like Dwight Perkins and Jens Jensen recognized that it was essential to preserve these native landscapes for people to enjoy for centuries to come. They worked for years to establish the nation’s first – and now largest at 70,000 acres – forest preserve district. 

In more recent history, the forest preserves have encountered a great deal of abuse and neglect. Invasive brush turned thousands of acres into impassible thorn thickets, preserve land was sold, and trash littered the landscape. A new group of civic leaders, people just like you, formed Friends of the Forest Preserves in 1998 to rescue these treasured lands. We knew that in order to maintain these vast rewards and ensure they’re here for all of us to enjoy, we’d have to work just as hard as the visionary citizens who protected them more than a century ago.

Today, we protect, promote, and care for the forest preserves to ensure they thrive for us and for future generations. Great civic leaders started the forest preserves over 100 years ago and now, it’s our turn to be those great civic leaders that ensure the preserves are here and healthy for the next 100 years.

ChiPride Volunteering Mission: Chipride Volunteering connects Chicago’s diverse LGBTQ+ community and allies through unified volunteerism.
We strive to create a more inclusive city by centralizing opportunities that support a variety of nonprofits, fostering connection and driving positive change at a local level.