To Oregon State Parks,

I came to you from Kentucky in the fall of 2024. I sold most of what I owned. I moved into an RV. I drove across the country to the Oregon coast because something in me knew this was where I was supposed to be.

I was nearly fifty years old. I had spent the first half of my life as a programmer. Successful by every measurable standard. Empty in ways I couldn't name until I found the Pacific.

I wasn't looking for a job. I was looking for a place to belong.

I found it at Tugman first. One month. A supervisor who was extraordinary. Someone whose presence told me the institution had room for people like her. Which meant it might have room for people like me. That belief carried me to Honeyman.

I loved the Welcome Center. I loved the work. I loved being the first face people saw when they arrived somewhere that mattered to them. I worked nine hours in a single day because I was there to serve and I meant it. I applied for a seasonal ranger position
because I wanted to build something here. A second half of a life spent on public land. Serving the coast I had crossed the country to find.

I told your regional engagement programs manager on March 25th 2025 while she was in the process of expelling me permanently from your parks.

I legitimately care about the park system. I came here with the best intentions. I love this place.

I meant every word.

I still mean every word.

What happened to me at Honeyman State Park is documented completely at oprdvolunteerabuse.org. Recordings. Timestamps. Correspondence. Every act of coordinated abuse, institutional betrayal, and deliberate retaliation directed at an unpaid volunteer on public
land. It is independently verifiable. It has never been challenged legally. It is not going away.

I am not writing this letter to relitigate what happened.

I am writing it because what happened to me was not about [Park Supervisor] or [Park Manager] or [Volunteer Services Lead] or [Program Manager]. They are symptoms. What happened to me was about an institution that created the conditions for them to operate without accountability. An
institution that gave them access to unpaid workers with no union, no HR protection, no recourse, and no formal employment relationship. An institution that when presented with recordings, timestamps, and written evidence of coordinated abuse chose silence,
containment, and therapeutic language over accountability.

Volunteers are not peripheral to what Oregon State Parks is.

They are the institution's relationship with the public made human.

They show up without compensation. Without protection. Without recourse. Because they believe in what public land means. Because they believe in what you are supposed to be.

They deserve better than what I received.

Not just me.

Every volunteer who came before me and encountered what I encountered without a camera in their lap. Every volunteer who will come after me if nothing changes. Every person who crossed the country or drove an hour or gave a weekend because they believed in
what this institution is supposed to represent.

They all deserve better.

I am filing a federal civil rights claim. That process will do what it does.

But this letter is not about the claim.

This letter is about the coast.

About what it means to love a place completely. To show up for it without reservation. To work nine hours in a day because you are there to serve and you mean it. To apply for a job because you want to build a life around something that matters.

And to have that love met with coordinated abuse, identity-based weaponization, and permanent expulsion from the public land you crossed the country to serve.

Oregon State Parks deserves better than what it chose to be in February and March of 2025.

The volunteers who serve it deserve better.

The public whose land it holds in trust deserves better.

I still believe in what you could be.

That belief is why I documented everything.

Not to destroy you.

To hold you to what you are supposed to be.

To hold you to what you claim to be.

Robert Samuel White

Former Oregon State Parks Volunteer

oprdvolunteerabuse.org