Pittwater Volunteers Volunteer all Year Round
May 17, 2015
National Volunteers Week has its final day for 2015, today, Sunday May 17th - the theme this year being 'Give Happy - Live Happy, acknowledging volunteers are happy making others happy, that many are more into giving than getting.
At Angophora Reserve and Crescent Reserve this morning bush care volunteers will be ridding the native bushland of weeds.
Over on Scotland Island the Scotland Island RFS will be holding their monthly Maintenance Day from 9 a.m., rain, hail or shine, unless they are called out to attend an incident.
At Bayview the Marine Rescue unit of Broken Bay will have volunteers who have paid for their own training on duty on the radio as well as on the water. If you hang around long enough you may see some Sailability Pittwater volunteers ensuring getting a head start on their May 20th working bee while their counterparts, many from the same group, will be planning some training over the water at Sailability Crystal Bay.
At Warriewood the Northern Beaches Interchange is probably taking some youngsters out for a romp today, perhaps an indoors one if it is wet and chilly.
While this afternoon, from 2pm until 5pm, Avalon Community Library will be open in the Community Centre and guess who will staff the desk or attend to returned books? - volunteers.
Heading out to Palm Beach Ferry Wharf you may see Community Transport - Manly Warringah Pittwater taking people to meet or go on a ferry.
Further south Mona Vale Hospital Auxiliary members are probably flicking around emails updating each other on preparations for June fundraising stalls while even further south, and if it were warmer, the volunteers who have also kept themselves qualified to be part of the Narrabeen Ladies Amateur Swimming Club 'Learn to Swim' would be happily be giving up Saturday mornings during Summer teaching youngsters how to swim.
Gaze east, you will probably espy Friends of Narrabeen Lagoon Catchment members taking people on bushwalks or out paddling or cleaning up the rubbish the less enlightened have left in their wake.
Move a few clicks north and bushcare groups east may be attending to Warriewood headlands or gaze west at those amid the Warriewood wetlands ridding those of weeds.
At Church Point, at Boothams Beach, at Rocky Point at Catherine and Elizabeth Parks and many places in between, Bush Care volunteers are out weeding, planting, restoring our environment. Yesterday North Pam Beach dunes regular group met, as they do every third Saturday, next Saturday is the 4th Saturday in the month and Careel creek banks will get another dose of planting and shift closer to restoration of a green corridor - each place will get its turn. Each place needs more hands.
Behind closed doors wild life carers are feeding orphaned native animals at all hours of the night or venturing out, in rain hail or shine too, to rescue those hit by speeding cars or shovel wielding humans.
The Duke of Edinburgh Award for high schoolers, bird walk and talks, our thousands of Surf Life Saving volunteers on the beach and as Age managers, trainers and administration during and outside of each Patrol Season, Church Groups, St Vinnies and Red Cross shops, AvPals, Meals on Wheels, the Avalon Tattoo, Living Ocean making Boomerang Bags, even those Volunteer Photography people can be spotted out and about snapping anything that moves. In fact, you cannot take a step in Pittwater without running into a volunteer in every field of endeavour or someone who has done a lot for months for no dollars, nadir-zip-zero-nothing, to get an event up and open. Many have done this for decades, not just once or twice.
Without them granny would not know how to send an email, the introduced weeds would have choked the bush, the waterways filled with more plastic rubbish than the incoming tide can bring back to the shore. The art shows would not open, the sports fields wouldn't be umpired by anyone, nor any lines marked for weekend matches, the canteens would not be offering you a hot sandwich on a cold winter afternoon.
Volunteering in Pittwater is not just a week long commitment, people spend their own hard earned dollars to do the courses so they can do the work for the whole of the season, for years in a row. They pay their fees to join, pay for their uniforms, pay their own travelling costs and for their tools.
This week, figures out from Volunteering Australia state over six million Australians do some form of voluntary work each week, and those are they that can be counted, but at least 25% of us.
So today, all those who do something for community, give it bones it can stand up with, a feisty blood that is always on the move, the final day for Volunteer Week 2015, the other 75% call a long and loud
THANK YOU!
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