Monday, December 21, 2009

Volunteers Tackle Trail Demo With Teamwork

Wow! We had one fabulous assemblage of volunteers this past Saturday to help pull up the old trail underlayment in preparation for a new shell path. Two of our weekly volunteer staff Catlin and George were joined by Michael, Erin, and Brian, Richard, Jeanne, David, Judy, and myself for some seriously dirty and back challenging work.  The first couple of volunteers to arrive (Jeanne and David) dove into the work right away. The rest of the mornings introductions were done on the fly…”good morning, gloves are over there, hop right in and just follow the lead” :-)!!

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The volunteers cleared 2/3 of the trail or just over 900 linear feet of Geoblock 4-5 ft wide. That’s over 4000 sq ft of material lifted from the ground. That was 4ooo sq ft of plastic grid full of gravel, wet sand, anchored to the ground with weed and tree roots! And, all of this was accomplished in just 4 hours. I was truly impressed by the tenacity with which the team tackled the project. And, I am truly grateful for all the help!

Much thanks again to members of the Jose Gaspar Toastmasters of Tampa; Richard, Jeanne, David, and Judy (the Toastmasters public speaking group meets at MOSI and volunteers for the museum and the Back Woods), extra thanks to Jeanne and David for the field ‘power station’ to keep the drills recharged, Catlin and George for putting in an extra day (you guys are the best), Brian (nice to see you again), Erin (Gator Gal extraordinaire), and husband Michael (thanks honey!)…an additional note of thanks goes to ‘Super Amazing Steve’ from our facilities staff for the last minute manufacture of specialty tool for the job; the volunteers send their thanks!

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