Focus Area
History & Heritage Volunteer Opportunities in Central Oregon
Matching organizations, in a different order on every visit
Tower Theatre Foundation, Inc., The
also known as Tower Theatre
The Tower Theatre is downtown Bend's historic performing arts center, a 460-seat Streamline Moderne landmark whose neon tower has lit up Wall Street since 1940. Saved from closure by the nonprofit Tower Theatre Foundation and fully renovated in 2004, it hosts concerts, theater, dance, film festivals, lectures, and community events, along with its LessonPLAN youth education programs. The Doug Watson Scholarship for Performing Arts honors Doug Watson, the Foundation's longtime board chair and a co-founder of Connect Central Oregon, by helping graduating seniors across Central Oregon pursue the arts in college.
Tower Theatre relies on a large crew of volunteers to keep the venue running. Opportunities include ushering, photography, giving tours, administrative support, hospitality, community liaison work, and helping with special events, with weekly trainings offered.
The Three Sisters Historical Society preserves and shares the history of the Sisters area, operating the Sisters Museum in the historic Hotel Sisters building, offering historic walking tours, and collecting photographs, artifacts, and stories of Sisters Country.
Museum support at the Sisters Museum: staffing the front desk during open hours, leading guided historic walking tours, helping with rotating exhibits and special events like the annual Murder Mystery, and assisting with the oral history and archival collection. A volunteer-led organization with both ongoing and event-based roles.
Jefferson County Historical Society and Museum, Inc
also known as Jefferson County Museum
The Jefferson County Historical Society operates the Jefferson County Museum in Madras, preserving and sharing the history of Jefferson County and its communities through exhibits, collections, and records.
Volunteers staff the museum and greet visitors, help care for artifacts and records, and support exhibits and community history events.
Honor Flight of Central Oregon
also known as HFCO
Honor Flight of Central Oregon flies local veterans to Washington, D.C., at no cost to them, to visit the memorials built in their honor. Founded in 2018 as one of about 140 hubs in the National Honor Flight Network, it gives priority to World War II, Korea, and Vietnam-era veterans and those with terminal illnesses from Central and Eastern Oregon. Run by volunteers and funded entirely by donations, it has completed eight flights serving more than 200 veterans, each escorted by a volunteer Guardian.
Honor Flight is run entirely by volunteers. More than 200 volunteer Guardians have escorted veterans one-on-one on the trip to Washington, D.C. Others help plan flights, recruit and interview veterans, fundraise and seek sponsors, and turn out for the send-off and welcome-home celebrations at the airport, where community members, groups, and businesses fill the terminal to thank returning veterans.
Heritage Apple Corps, a fiscally sponsored project of Discover Your Northwest, is a volunteer-run initiative to revive, protect, and maintain Central Oregon's pioneer-era fruit trees, planted by homesteading families more than a century ago on what is now the Crooked River National Grassland and other public lands. Working with the U.S. Forest Service and community partners, it restores historic orchards, runs a public Heritage Fruit Tree Registry with DNA-identified varieties, and is establishing a preservation orchard so these living pieces of local history survive.
Volunteers restore and protect historic homestead orchards on public lands: clearing brush and juniper to reduce fire risk and free up water for old trees, hands-on pruning and tree care at restoration workshops and field days, propagating cuttings for a living preservation orchard, and helping document heritage trees. No experience needed; arborists and orchardists teach techniques on site.
Art Sprouts, Inc.
also known as ASI, Bend for Ukraine, UA&Co. (Ukrainian Alliance of Central Oregon), Kolovita
Bend nonprofit founded by a Kyiv-born art and outdoor educator. Through Art Sprouts it brings art and outdoor education to children who might not otherwise have access, and through Bend for Ukraine and UA&Co. it helps displaced Ukrainian families resettle in Central Oregon while sharing Ukrainian culture with the wider community.
Volunteers help run community cultural events and pop-ups such as Ukrainian holiday celebrations, workshops, and community art installations; support resource fairs for newly arrived families; assist with youth art and outdoor education programs; and lend skills like translation, mentoring, and everyday support to Ukrainian families settling into Central Oregon.
Sisters Rodeo Association
also known as Sisters Rodeo
The Sisters Rodeo Association produces the Sisters Rodeo, billed as "The Biggest Little Show in the World," a PRCA professional rodeo held each June since 1940 at its arena just outside Sisters. A stop on the Columbia River Circuit, the rodeo draws top cowboys and cowgirls along with a hometown parade, family events, and a weekend celebration of Sisters Country's Western heritage.
The Sisters Rodeo is put on almost entirely by volunteers. Each June, community members help with gates and ticketing, parking, ushering, concessions, the Sisters Rodeo Parade, the kids' events, and arena and grounds work, and many return year after year. Local rodeo volunteers also help staff the Columbia River Circuit Finals in Redmond each fall.
Día de Muertos Bend is Central Oregon's community Día de Muertos celebration, organized by local volunteers to honor loved ones who have passed with a community ofrenda, papel picado, music, dance, food, and vendors. The 2025 celebration, themed Dignidad en la Vida y la Muerte, filled a street in downtown Bend on November 7; in 2026 it moves to the Open Arts Center.
Volunteers make the celebration happen: setting up and decorating, helping build the community ofrenda, supporting vendors and performers, and keeping the event welcoming and safe for everyone. Sign up through the volunteer form. In the weeks before the event, the Open Arts Center has hosted free family craft nights where anyone can help make decorations for the community altar.
The High Desert Museum, just south of Bend, is the largest cultural institution in Central and Eastern Oregon and the only museum in the nation devoted to North America's High Desert. Opened in 1982 on 135 acres, it brings together live wildlife, art, history, and the region's Indigenous and pioneer cultures through indoor and outdoor exhibits, living history, bird of prey encounters, and hands-on STEAM programs, camps, and outreach for learners of all ages.
Volunteers support nearly every part of the Museum, from staffing exhibits and leading hands-on activities for visitors to helping school groups on field trips, assisting at Admissions, and interpreting living history and natural history at various sites. Teen-specific roles are available seasonally. Adult volunteers complete a background check and orientation.
Rural Oregon Community Foundation
also known as ROCF, Crooked River Roundup Foundation
The Rural Oregon Community Foundation, which also does business as the Crooked River Roundup Foundation, is a Prineville nonprofit dedicated to preserving the Western Way of Life. It awards scholarships to Central Oregon students pursuing careers in ranching, agriculture, farming, rodeo, and animal health, runs youth programs like Boots and Roots for local fourth and fifth graders, and hosts community events such as the Fall Cowboy Gathering of Western music and cowboy poetry. Its annual Dinner & Dance kicks off Crooked River Roundup week.
Volunteers, including many local FFA and 4-H students, help run the foundation's annual Dinner & Dance fundraiser that kicks off Roundup week, and support youth programs like Boots and Roots and community events like the Fall Cowboy Gathering.
Greater Redmond Historical Society
also known as Redmond Museum
The Greater Redmond Historical Society operates the Redmond Museum and cares for the City of Redmond's collection of historical artifacts, sharing the story of Redmond and its surrounding communities through exhibits and educational programs.
Volunteers staff the Redmond Museum and greet visitors, help care for the city's historical collection, and support exhibits, school programs, and community history events.
Airshow of the Cascades
also known as Central Oregon Airshow Inc.; Bright Wood Airshow of the Cascades
The Airshow of the Cascades is a two-day aviation festival at the Madras Municipal Airport each August, drawing about 20,000 people for precision jet teams, aerobatics, historic warbirds from the Erickson Aircraft Collection, a car show, live music, and family activities. A 501(c)(3) nonprofit, it gives local civic organizations a chance to raise money for their programs and scholarships.
About 300 volunteers make the airshow happen each year, and many return year after year. Volunteers get free admission on each day they work, free entry to the Erickson Aircraft Museum, snacks and drinks, an official Ground Crew T-shirt, an orientation to the historic WWII Madras Airfield, and an invite to the annual kickoff party. Registration opens each spring.
You haven't seen them all yet. There are more organizations below.