This week, we present a retrospective on volunteerism in the 2014-2015 season of Volunteer Days, with particular attention paid to the 5th annual, 100 Volunteer Day, which occurred on May 9th, 2015. The staff of the Sitka Fine Arts Camp are very grateful to the 103+ volunteers who came and contributed 600+ hours to the campus restoration effort both during the day, and in preparation for the event. Special thanks to the Hames family and Sea Mart for providing food for the event, as well as to the many contributors of desserts and sides. Thanks, as well, to Connie Kreiss, Wendy Alderson, Laura Schmidt, and all of our Building Organizers for the crucial roles they played in bringing 100 Volunteer Day together. The following is written by SFAC Volunteer Coordinator, Jacob Peterson, with images by James Poulson:

I've come to understand that since the start of the restoration effort in the spring of 2011, the historic Sheldon Jackson Campus has not been lacking in spirit and commitment of individuals dedicated to saving the space. I've been here since September of 2014, and since that time, I've seen something astounding and inspiring, something that I had never seen prior to my arrival in Sitka. What is it? Tireless, week-after-week, no-strings-attached investment in a crucial community asset. It inspires me.

At this point in the effort to save the campus, the progress evident week to week from volunteer days and ongoing contractor projects is subtler and more detailed than it was closer to the outset of revitalization.

John Little repairs shingles on the Laundry Building

Before, getting the campus to a safe, usable place required immense effort on large-scale, big picture projects: cleaning out Allen Memorial and what is now Odess Theater of debris that had accumulated as the campus became vacant, staining thousands of boards for various parts of the same building, replacing roofs of multiple campus structures, painting a great number of vertical surfaces on campus, renovating rooms in Whitmore and elsewhere from top to bottom. More recently, tiling and grouting, painting trim, creating flower beds: these projects have in some ways marked a new phase of saving a campus.

This transition from highly visible to more detailed work has often been the case for the 2014-2015 season. May 9th, however, was one of those days when volunteers came out in force to support massive undertakings, big picture projects, in some cases commenced and completed in the same day. The weather was wonderfully cooperative.

Deep cleaning multiple buildings, repainting the front of Whitmore, scraping and repainting the back side of the Laundry Building, shuffling dozens of pieces of furniture around campus to summer configuration, and more, volunteers did amazing things with the time they spent on campus:

Susan Brandt-Ferguson details windows in Fraser

Volunteers repaint the front of Whitmore

Volunteers prep the Laundry for paint

Zeke Blackwell shuffles mattresses around campus

On a personal note, I feel like I've been learning so much in my time as a Volunteer Coordinator. There is nothing like showing up on a Saturday, unsure of how many volunteers will be on campus on a given day, and finding, most weeks, and week after week, the same crew of stalwarts leading the charge with a regularly evolving crew of new volunteers. This tendency toward cooperation, community building, and investment in a shared resource without the expectation of anything in return, is a truly lovely thing to see. I've learned how to volunteer, as a Sitka Service Fellow, from the stalwart crew of SJ Volunteers, from the community members who put their valuable time into breathing life into campus that needed to be brought back to vitality.

This Saturday, June 6th, we'll have one last Volunteer Day for the 2014-2015 season. Details: 9AM to 3PM, lunch at noon in Whitmore. 

This Saturday will involve detail work in Whitmore - light cleaning, painting trim - mostly, with the possibility of large-scale exterior painting projects on Whitmore, weather and numbers permitting.

This Saturday will also mark my final week of Volunteer Coordinating for SFAC. It's been an amazing season. To the individuals who have contributed to Volunteer Days this season, to those who have advised and helped lead the charge on both May 9th, and on other Saturdays 2014-2015, I convey my deepest gratitude. It's been incredibly rewarding to facilitate and participate in this effort. Perhaps I'll see you around campus this summer. Till Saturday!