Some CASSP volunteers and staff at the 2026 Society for California Archaeology annual meeting.
What we do
We recruit, train, and support members of the public to volunteer as site stewards at archaeological and historical sites.
Site stewards regularly visit their assigned sites and report site conditions. They keep sensitive site information confidential. They do not dig in the site or remove artifacts.
Site stewards work at State and federal public agencies and at private conservation organizations. These volunteers are supervised by the agency archaeologists who assign sites and receive the site stewards’ reports on site conditions.
CASSP activities provide volunteers with purposeful work, support agency archaeologists, and help protect heritage sites.
Who we are
Partners for Archaeological Site Stewardship (PASS) is a 501c3 nonprofit based in California. We formed PASS in 2018 to support public archaeology in California and across the country. PASS has administered the CASSP program since 2019, and we have conducted CASSP from its beginning in 1999.
CASSP Workshops
CASSP volunteer training workshops take two days. The first day consists of an online classroom session, which is free and open to the public with no prerequisites except a sincere desire to protect archaeological and historical resources. The second day is a field trip to view sites and record observations. In order to participate in the field trip you must first attend a classroom session, sign a confidentiality agreement to not reveal sensitive site information to the public, and pay a $25 fee to cover the costs of field trip materials that we provide.
Contact us
P O Box 7577
Long Beach CA 90807
Phone: (562) 453-8984
Executive Director: Beth Padon
bpadon@sitestewardship.org
CASSP 2025 annual report
Each March, we provide an annual report of CASSP activities over the previous calendar year. Highlights for 2025 include: three CASSP Heritage Hikes (at Corn Spring, east of Palm Springs; the Old Mission Dam, San Diego; and Wakamatsu Farm, near Coloma), one CASSP workshop field trip at the Santa Rosa & San Jacinto Mountains National Monument and another CASSP workshop field trip at Tomo-Kahni State Historic Park, one CASSP workshop online session, and participation in the 2025 SCA Annual Meeting in Burlingame. CASSP is provided by the nonprofit Partners for Archaeological Site Stewardship. In 2025, it had $13,200 in revenue and $11,800 in expenses, about the same as the previous year.