ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the characteristics of the volunteer stewards. It focuses on understanding the variations in the levels of participation in environmental stewardship. The chapter describes the role played by the purposive aspects of urban environmental stewardship in structuring levels of engagement among MillionTreesNYC volunteers. It describes the characteristics of novice and committed volunteer stewards within a sample population in order to develop an understanding of the potential underpinnings of urban environmental stewardship. Stewardship involves ecological restoration and environmental protection, but the basis for many of these efforts rests within broader quality-of-life issues. The chapter explores the organizational affiliations, level of prior experience with tree care, and the means by which volunteers were recruited in order to understand better the characteristics that differentiate novice and committed volunteers. The focuses is on comparing them to understand differences between these two extremes. The degree of political involvement and civic engagement especially seen in committed stewards is almost certainly related to the motivations.
