GIVING FROM THE HEART - VOLUNTEERISM - Part Two

By Dorris Wood

Guest Columnist: Dorris Wood has lived in Yreka since 1949. She attended local schools and was employed by a number of local businesses. On January 1, 1998, Ms. Wood retired from the United States Forest Service. She has served as a member of the College of the Siskiyous Board of Trustees since 1983. This is part two of a three-part series.

Several weeks ago, part one of my series appeared in the local paper. In my first column I talked about volunteerism and my decision to become a volunteer after I retired on January 1, 1998. At that time, I said in part two I would talk about how to determine the kind of volunteer activities that would fit both one’s interests and skills.

Volunteers certainly provide many types of services but to be successful as well as personally fulfilling for the volunteer, a great deal of thought must go into selecting the kind of volunteering you want to do. There is no limit to the needs out there.

In following my interests, my love for the great outdoors was a major consideration. I love the mountains and trees, but I also enjoy and like deserts, jungles, prairies, swamps, and valleys. Having just visited the Okefenokee Swamp, I can tell you it is wonderful! My other love is water. All water, but for me, Shasta Lake is special.

For several years, while still employed, I unsuccessfully tried to transfer to the Shasta Lake Ranger District. I knew that the U.S. Forest Service occasionally uses volunteers; therefore, I decided to pursue working there as a volunteer.

Having spent my life as a working person, I am sensitive to employers who sometimes use volunteers to displace paid employees. Therefore getting the job done, but at vastly reduced costs. With the current trend of personnel cutbacks in public agencies and businesses, I did not want to be a party to such actions. But I knew I did want to be connected to the lake and to participate in the wonderful work done there by the Turntable Bay crew.

The crew uses boats as their major means of transportation to access facilities on and about the lake. They are responsible for cleaning and maintaining boat-in campgrounds, placing and maintaining buoys and floating toilets. They maintain all of the boats they use as well as those used by other departments who have lake responsibilities such as fire prevention and control, wildlife and fisheries projects, some law enforcement, and are responsible for much of the clean up of shoreline trash.

With this decision I then had to decide how I could become a volunteer, and do meaningful work, without displacing a worker. I made a trip to the Forest Service to discuss my intent. In doing so, I discovered that there was no written historical data on Shasta Lake’s campgrounds and that these campgrounds had been created by many individuals’ creativity, original ideas, and using varied sources of materials. The origins of the campgrounds are fairly recent and still exist in the memories of the people who were involved.

When visiting the campgrounds and seeing the level of commitment by the Turntable Bay crew members to keep them clean, attractive and as convenient as possible, I became interested in creating and writing an historical overview to record this history before it became irretrievable.

The Forest Service is good at maintaining such histories of its activities and my background in silviculture gave me plenty of experience doing this. So we agreed this activity was appropriate for a volunteer and I began to report to work three days a week with the employees at Turntable Bay. I received no pay, nor any per diem or travel expenses.

I took every opportunity to accompany the employees when they went out on the lake. I took pictures, asked questions, wrote descriptions, documenting all the information I could; at the same time I developed a great deal of respect for my new co-workers. I watched them repair boats, build iron railings and iron cages, create and build signs, move tables, lay brickwork, and set buoys -- they even taught me how to weave a Molly Knot.

I soon learned they also built boats, docks, landing ramps, tree boxes, brick restrooms, and did metal fabrication of all sorts for their station and other departments as well as the district office.

Along the way I helped with some of the cleaning and repairing and picked up a goodly bit of shore trash. All the time I wore a coat bearing a "volunteer" emblem, and lake visitors applauded me. I liked that and truly enjoyed being there. I did not tell them that I was walking a thin line between volunteering and performing routine work some of the time. By being allowed to accompany the workers, the regular employees then had time to work with me on my volunteer project.

During this time we moved log booms to control debris and I was able to accompany the wildlife biologists when they installed cameras in bald eagle nests. In my third article I will elaborate on these activities.

In the areas surrounding the lake, there are old abandoned cabins I visited, that I can visualize being renovated and made available for visitors to rent. However, I cannot visualize money being made available for such renovations or even the approval to do so.

We visited old mines that would lend themselves to becoming guided tours filled with historical information. Old roads, that existed prior to filling the lake, slant down into the water, but then lead upward to only who knows to what or where…. Trails intersect the arms of the lake, go to lovely little waterfalls, caves, and excavation sites. With very little money available for maintenance, most of these trails must now fend for themselves. The tops of the ridges between the lake arms open to little used terrain and beg to be explored.

There is enough work around the lake for an army of volunteers but demand for usage by the public is light. At this time, resources are not available for maintenance or development.

So went my summer of volunteering from June to October. During this time, I made a number of new friends, did a little good for a few and a lot of good for me, and found a new kind of excitement in volunteering. If all goes well, I hope to continue next year, and have identified additional projects that fall within my scope of volunteering.

By having the time to volunteer in an area within my interests, with the support of the district ranger and station manager, the newfound friendships by the Turntable Bay Station employees, provided me with wonderful experience that I could not have gained in another way. Hopefully I was able to enhance their work and accomplish "a little bit of good for everyone."

I encourage you too to think about how you might do the same. I also hope to see you enjoying lake as much as I do.