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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 3, 2015)
VOLUNTEER AND SERVE OTHERS I t’s not easy to give up your free time. In a cynical world, WKH ¿UVW TXHVWLRQ WKDW FRPHV to mind is often, “What’s in it for me?” The answer is simple: Volunteering gives people the chance to give back to their communities. The North Coast of Oregon has no shortage of organizations needing a hand. Camp hosts hook-ups, hosts perform a variety of duties: clean-up projects, main- tenance duties, and on-site super- vision. They do everything from simple meet-and-greet of visitors to repairing sites and maintenance. They also participate in helping park rangers organize nature talks and history presentations. “Even when there was nothing going on, we were never bored,” Colbert says. Hosts bring accumulated knowledge from former occupa- tions, such as mechanical exper- tise and woodworking, something that adds to the camaraderie. “Hosting gave us some of the best memories of our lives,” Col- bert says. “If I never had to get mail, I would never have gone home.” Like many who serve as camp hosts, Carolyn Colbert and her late husband, Dick, of Rockaway Beach, were looking for some- thing meaningful to do with their retirement. After talking to friends who had hosted at Oregon State Parks, they decided to give it a try. “We always loved to camp and loved meeting Volunteer in your people,” Colbert ‘A different community says. kind of energy’ As lifelong Or- Sitting right along For hosting information at egonians, they felt U.S. Highway 101, Fort Stevens State Park, call that helping new the Seaside Visitors 503-861-3170 visitors experience Bureau gets foot To learn about volunteering Oregon was the big- traffic year-round, at the Seaside Visitors gest draw of their de- ranging from steady Bureau, call 503-739-3097 cision. to hectic. With that in mind, Jon Rahl, director To get involved with EVC, of the visitors bu- they chose to host visit www.evcnb.org reau, knows the val- close to home at Fort ue of knowledgeable Stevens State Park, a popular destination that can book local volunteers. “They are our campers up to a year ahead of first line of defense,” he says. Rahl adds that not only do vol- time. Colbert thinks that bustling energy made it their favorite park unteers greet and assist visitors, at which to host. “We kept coming they perform a variety of staff sup- port tasks, such as pack Seaside back to Fort Stevens,” she says. Volunteer hosts bolster the visitors guides for distribution. “They are always busy doing ranks of Oregon State Parks year- something,” Rahl says. “Our vol- round. In exchange for an RV site and unteers don’t want to just sit, they Coastal Life Story by DAN HAAG 4 | December 3, 2015 | coastweekend.com want to keep busy and give back to their community.” The Seaside Visitors Bureau uses about four volunteers during the off-season and six or seven during peak tourist times. Luckily, recruiting and retain- ing volunteers has never been a problem. Rahl says the bureau maintains a solid core of regular volunteers, and when one moves on to something else, there is al- ways someone willing to take their place. “They really enjoy being around people, and this is a great place for that,” Rahl says. Conversely, Rahl feels that vis- itors’ experience is enhanced by interacting with volunteers. “They bring a different kind of energy and perspective to our visi- tors,” he says. “It’s fun for both of them to engage.” Coastal communities like Sea- side often rely heavily on volun- teers, not only to meet-and-greet visitors, but to carry out large- scale annual events, such as Hood to Coast, the nearly 200-mile-long relay event that starts at Mt. Hood and ends in Seaside in late August. Rahl feels that because Seaside isn’t a big city, it’s easier for vol- unteers to feel invested in where they give their time. “People always step up here when they’re needed,” he says. ³,W¶VDYHU\UHGHHPLQJTXDOLW\´ Helping your neighbors Volunteers are counted on in times of serious need. Such is the case with Emergen- cy Volunteer Corps of Nehalem Bay (EVC), an organization born of necessity following the devas- tating winter storm of 2007. Since then, EVC’s focus has been on creating a culture of emer- gency preparedness and resiliency. It’s a lot of work, and the EVC team consists entirely of volun- teers. Submitted photo Oregon State Parks rely on volunteer camp hosts to perform a wide variety of services. Submitted photo EVC volunteers train regularly to help their neighbors in the event of a disaster. Linda Kozlowski, president of EVC, has been amazed at the enthusiastic response. “We have around 200 volunteers from the three towns (Manzanita, Nehalem and Wheeler),” she says. Volunteers participate in every- thing from CERT and ham radio training, to setting up emergency shelters and mapping neighbor- hoods for disaster readiness. “Mapping neighborhoods is working together to take care of each other,” Kozlowski says. “We started with 18 neighborhoods and now have 130. It’s really ener- gized the communities.” For a relatively small area, Ne- halem Bay’s three communities boast a lot of people with a lot of know-how in emergency pre- paredness. While that is the basis of EVC’s strength, Kozlowski hopes the organization will start finding younger volunteers to gradually take the reins. “We have an aging demograph- ic who can’t do this work forever,” she notes.