Park volunteers lend a hand

By Jane Greiner
Sun contributor
Eleanor Comings, a retired teacher from Frankfort, is approaching her ten thousandth hour of volunteer work at the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore (the local branch of the National Park Service), a fact that she didn’t readily share. She was more comfortable talking about her work.
“I started because I loved the outdoors,” Eleanor says. Her first assignment as a volunteer was checking trails. She walks a trail every day and reports on problems like trees down or loose dogs, and helps lost people find their way out. In the winter she does the same thing on cross-country skis. The volunteer trail work is organized by the Friends of Sleeping Bear.

In addition Eleanor volunteers at the Philip Hart Visitor Center in Empire and the Maritime Museum in Glen Haven, helps out with the Park’s Artist in Residence program, lends a hand at the annual Port Oneida Fair, assists with the Saturdays at the Lakeshore program, tour guides the senior citizen buses on the scenic drive and occasionally participates in search and rescue operations. Most of these activities fall under the Volunteers In the Park program.
She enjoys all the people she meets in her work as well as the opportunity to be outdoors and learn more about the outdoors.
“I love doing the senior citizen bus tours. It’s a chance to meet many interesting people, including many from foreign countries.”
“One time I had a busload of Russian visitors,” she says. “Only one woman on the whole bus spoke English and she was the interpreter. I would say a few words and the translator would say several long sentences. I never knew what she was saying, but they were all screaming with laughter.”
“It’s been wonderful volunteering for me because I am outdoors and they have me doing so many different jobs.”
Eleanor is just one of more than 800 people who volunteer at the Lakeshore each year, annually donating around 30,000 hours of work to enhance the Park experience for millions of visitors. The Blacksmith Shop, Boat Museum, and Life Saving Station in Glen Haven, for example, are almost completely staffed by volunteers.
Next time you enjoy the Sleeping Bear Dunes, whether on a park trail, at the Visitor Center, camping or attending one of the Park special events, look around you. Many of the people helping out are likely volunteers. And Eleanor may be there with them, quietly lending a hand.