The Friends is a volunteer run organization.  Volunteers plan the programs, manage them and implement them – a big job. That takes about 10,000 hours each and every year. It is my pleasure to highlight some of the fine accomplishments of our volunteer teams.

The Barbecue team put in over 700 hours preparing and selling hamburgers, hot dogs and sausages to hungry campers – 1,850 lunches to be exact!  This raised over $5,000 to support our programs and is important publicity for the Friends.  This is in addition to all the raffle tickets sold at this weekly event.

Christmas @ Presqu’ile is our biggest fundraiser – last year, it generated $ 23,000 profit – that goes a long way to paying for environmental and education programs.  It takes an army to staff the show floor, park the cars, prepare baked goods for the Tea Room, and look after the Lighthouse Gift Shop and Art Sale –over 2,000 hours and over 100 volunteers.

Each year we spend over 1300 hours in the Park making improvements and helping to ensure its sustainability.  We have Trail Monitors, Footbridge Builders, Tree Planters, Invasive Species Removers and Picnic table Builders.  Do you know our volunteers have built over 1800 feet of footbridges on the Park trails over the past three years?  This is after we built the Marsh Boardwalk and Jobes trail.  The Park Staff are thrilled with your help and so is the Board.

Park visitors flock to the Nature Centre, our Gift Shop and the Lighthouse Interpretive Centre.  Although we do help fund the salaries of student employees to work there, we also put in nearly 800 volunteer hours - buying the inventory, stocking the shelves and staffing the store.  The gift shop is our second largest fund raiser contributing more than $15,000 towards our programs.  Of equal importance is the role played by the team as the face of the Friends to park visitors.  The Gift Shop is one of our biggest raffle sales sources too.

Our volunteers participate in many community and Park special events – from Waterfowl Weekend to Canada Day to Applefest and beyond – these volunteers spend hundreds of hours staffing displays, selling raffle tickets and sharing the good word about the friends and the Park.

Last, but by no means least, thanks go to our Board of Directors and Committee Members.  They put in almost 2,000 hours of volunteer labour working behind the scene to make sure our programs are organized, funded, and staffed. 

We are very proud of what we have accomplished through the dedication of our volunteers.  Our amazing volunteer coordinator, Nancy Sutton is always ready to find the best fit between your interests and our needs. 

New volunteer activities are always available.  Perhaps the project you volunteer for is wrapping up for the season, or perhaps one of our new initiatives is of interest to you.

Listed below are some opportunities to help out over the fall and winter months:

• Board of Directors
• Christmas @ Presqu’ile Arts & Craft Show
• Communications Committee (PR, Marketing, Graphic Design)
• Education Program (Kids N Nature camp, school programs)
• Lighthouse Gift Shop
• Membership Recruitment
• Photography
• Working in the Park – trail building, environmental initiatives

Interested?  Contact our Volunteer Coordinator, Nancy Sutton at 613-475-9817 or email: volunteers@friendsofpresquile.on.ca