In praise of fourteen hundred (!) volunteers

By Ilana DeBare
Golden Gate Bird Alliance relies on volunteers. How many volunteers, you might ask? A few dozen? Maybe a hundred?
Try fourteen hundred — and that’s just in the first six months of 2015.
Saturday was our annual Volunteer Appreciation Picnic, held this year at Alameda’s Crown Memorial Beach, near the Return of the Terns tour site.
Luckily for us and our supply of sandwiches, all 1,400 didn’t show up. But those who did attend enjoyed a yummy picnic lunch, raffle prizes, warm sun and fresh Bay breezes, and glimpses of a flock of Brown Pelicans floating just offshore. Everyone also got our heartfelt thanks and one of our new Golden Gate Bird Alliance Burrowing Owl tote bags!
We awarded our 2015 Paul Covel Conservation Education Award to Herb and Randi Long, who have volunteered since 2009 in our Eco-Education program that each year introduces about 700 children from low-income elementary schools to nature.

What else do Golden Gate Bird Alliance volunteers do, besides help lead Eco-Education field trips? Among other things:
Field trip leaders guide over 120 free bird walks each year, which are the first introduction to birding for many participants.
Docents help the public notice and appreciate the birds around them at Lake Merritt, the Bay Trail, Cesar Chavez Park, and downtown Oakland.

Hundreds of people — both individuals and organized groups such as scouts, students, and workplace teams — help restore wildlife habitat with us at Pier 94, Golden Gate Park, Crissy Field, the Alameda Wildlife Refuge, and Martin Luther King Jr. Shoreline.
Our San Francisco and East Bay conservation committees, along with our Friends of the Alameda Wildlife Reserve committee, study and speak out on local issues affecting birds and wildlife.
GGBA office volunteers do everything from update our membership database to organize our library of birding books.

Volunteers are a key part of our communications program — photographing GGBA events and sharing gorgeous bird photos, writing articles for our blog and The Gull newsletter, and managing our Twitter and Meetup feeds.
Event volunteers help organize fun, educational gatherings like our monthly Speaker Series. Birdathon volunteers lay the groundwork for that monthlong series of fun, fundraising trips.  And other volunteers represent GGBA at community events like the upcoming Osprey Days festival in Vallejo. (It’s next weekend, June 26-28! Click here for info on free Osprey walks and other events in the festival.)
Then there’s citizen science! GGBA volunteers carry out two Christmas Bird Counts in Oakland and San Francisco each year, plus other bird monitoring activities throughout the year. Our 2014 CBCs set a new record with 461 volunteers putting in over 3,600 hours!

Last but not least, we have a devoted volunteer Board of Directors who chair our conservation committees, adult education program, and finance and development committees, and who ensure that GGBA is well managed and financially secure.
Whew! It makes me tired just listing everything that our volunteers do. With such a wide array of volunteer activities, there’s something for every interest or skill set.
Not involved yet? Want to make a difference? Contact our Volunteer Coordinator Noreen Weeden at nweeden@goldengatebirdalliance.org to find the role that’s perfect for you.
Then join us next June at our 2016 Volunteer Appreciation Picnic… so we can share our gratitude and some sandwiches.
But probably not 1,400 sandwiches.