Between April and October of 2013, Star Island benefited from over 10,000 hours of volunteer work. Working on projects as varied as painting walls, mending furniture, and serving dinner, volunteers are an integral part to Star Island’s community atmosphere.
Volunteer help on Star Island occurs in so many ways. Here are some examples from this past season:
- Chopping vegetables in the kitchen — kitchen total hours: 442
- Folding bed linens — housekeeping total hours: 715
- Washing dinner dishes — dish room total hours: 195
- Leading science experiments in the Marine Lab — Rutledge Marine Lab total hours: 825.5
- Weeding in the vegetable gardens — gardening total hours: 949
Volunteers participated in nearly every department including our maintenance crew, front desk, conference services, truck, and snack bar.
Some efforts on the island are entirely volunteer based. For example, an annual paint crew repainted the interior of Cottage E this past spring, as well as the lobby walls. During the last days of September, another paint team scraped and repainted the basement bathroom floors. In total, these paint crews volunteered for 852 hours. We shared an earlier story about a volunteer team renovating the Art Barn.
So much of what happens on Star Island is thanks to volunteer efforts. While our 10,000+ hours of volunteer work is impressive, our affiliated organizations also rely on volunteers. Summer conferences and programs are organized by volunteer committees, and the Isles of Shoals Association, UU and Star Island UCC are volunteer led.
To learn more about how vital volunteering is for Star Island, check out our fall newsletter. This issue, including an essay by Rev. Dave Scheuneman, focused on various ways of giving to the island .