Thank You, Volunteers!

We have a volunteer I call “Awesome Bob” because, well, he is.  And when I think about our other awesome volunteers, additional adjectives come to mind.  Wonderful, hard-working, dedicated, helpful, amazing, fabulous, really cool….

As National Volunteer Week draws to a close, I would like to thank and recognize everyone who volunteers at the National Marine Life Center.  They clean, they feed, they clean some more.  They weigh, measure, test, and enter data.  They sort, file, organize.  They build, saw, nail, affix, paint.  They cut, glue, create, color, read, teach.  They write, market, fundraise, and govern.  NMLC’s amazing volunteer corps are essential to accomplishing our mission, and we are grateful for their service.

Top 10
In 2010, 34 program volunteers contributed over 1,506 hours!  The following contributed the highest number of hours.
Wendy – 205.25
Ann Marie – 263.25
Paula – 147.5
Len – 145.5
Linda – 145
Bob – 81
Elizabeth – 80
Jim – 70.5
Kaley – 64.5
Lisa – 49.25

Student Interns
16 students attending schools from Florida to Maine interned with us over the past year.  Thank you to Matt, Sean, Robert, Lianna, Amanda, Dory, Frank, Corissa, Trina, Jenn, George, Dan, Dan, Jay, Kaitlin, Casey.  Many more helped with short-term community service or service learning projects.  Thank you especially to Jackie, Lauren, Margaret, Adrienne, and Aubrey.  We thoroughly enjoy working with these students, and hope their experience will help in their future endeavors.

Schools included:  University of Tampa, Cornell University, University of New England at Biddeford, Unity College, Massachusetts Maritime Academy, Bridgewater University, Cape Cod Community College, Cape Cod Academy, Sturgis Charter Public School, and Upper Cape Cod Regional Technical High School.

Board
Board members are often the “unsung heroes” of a non-profit organization, and ours are no exception.  Our trustees are responsible for overall governance of the National Marine Life Center, as well as big-picture strategic planning, fiduciary oversight, and resource development (i.e., fundraising).  These duties are enough to keep anyone busy, especially since most have full-time jobs and all have full-time lives outside NMLC.  However many also roll up their sleeves and pitch in programmatically and with special events.  I’d like to extend a special thank you to Jeff Luce, Rob Brennan, Judy Honan, Barb Schneider, Linda Burke, Kevin Farr, Lee McGraw, Bill Reich, Dr. Mike Ryer, and Joy Surprenant.  We truly appreciate your leadership.

Thank You, Awesome Volunteers!