If you’ve ever hiked the Olympic Discovery Trail on county property, thank a volunteer.
If you’ve ever enjoyed the four-day Juan de Fuca Festival of the Arts or its concerts throughout the year, thank a volunteer.
And if you’ve ever wanted to preserve your land through the North Olympic Land Trust, yes, thank a volunteer.
Or better yet, just thank Lorrie Campbell, as she is the volunteer coordinator for all three organizations.
Among the three groups, she oversees more than 500 volunteers from all walks of life.
“I have the best job on the Peninsula,” Campbell said. “Each day I am surrounded by volunteers giving freely of themselves to make our community better.
“I look forward to going to work so I can be near these great people.”
Campbell called Clallam County a community run by volunteers, but is modest about her part in the process.
“I bet that each day every one of us comes in contact with at least one volunteer or project worked on by a volunteer,” she said. “It wouldn’t be the same here without volunteerism.”
Campbell, 37, has called Port Angeles home since 2002, when she was stationed at Olympic National Park as a wildland firefighter.
The Wisconsin native found a new home in the Northwest corner of the country, drawn, like many, by the natural beauty.
“I just loved it here — I decided I never wanted to live anywhere else,” she said.
Campbell was able to parlay previous volunteer experience as an assistant volunteer coordinator at Rocky Mountain National Park into a position working for Clallam County as the volunteer coordinator for the Olympic Discovery Trail.
“It was a good fit because there was a lot of trail construction, and a lot of digging in the dirt,” she said, experience she learned from working on fires.
Campbell coordinates close to 200 volunteers working on the portions of the trail that are managed by the county, as well as more than 100 trail adopters.
She also initiated a weekly “Thursday Trail Crew,” with about 20 regular volunteers who show up to work on the trail with her, from cutting brush and pulling weeds to clearing mudslides and doing regular maintenance.
Campbell said she was unsure if she would find volunteers willing to work all day for free on the trail, but word spread quickly.
“I’ve never had to recruit volunteers,” she said.
“Their passion and dedication is amazing.”
Campbell runs the trail volunteer program from a desk in hall at the county offices, working 17 and a half hours a week.
She noted that the Peninsula Trails Coalition volunteer organization works on segments of the trail managed by Clallam County and the cities of Port Angeles and Sequim.
Volunteer crews under her supervision are also working on the Adventure Trail portion near Joyce, which is an unpaved trail used by walkers as well as mountain bikers and horse riders.
Campbell is a hands-on type supervisor, working alongside the volunteers whether it’s cutting brush or digging trails.
Another 16 hours a week she works out of a Port Angeles office overlooking the intersection of First and Laurel streets, at the North Olympic Land Trust, as the stewardship manager.
There she relies on volunteers to help her manage the private land placed under the land trust’s care, from conducting baseline studies on the property and surveys of plants and birds, to natural resource restoration such as pulling out non-native scotch broom and noxious weeds.
Campbell said her volunteers come from a wide demographic, from families and single people to retirees.
And everyone has a skill to offer.
“We have a lot of volunteers with very high skill levels,” she said.
“Or some have no background in the work, but they are willing to get out there and get dirty.”
Campbell said one of the most popular activities for volunteers is planting trees for restoration purposes.
“Everybody likes planting trees,” she said.
As the Juan de Fuca Festival of the Arts approaches on May 28 through 31, she is gearing up for that volunteer duty.
She was the volunteer coordinator for three years, but took last year off when she bought a house that needed attention.
Karen Long took on the position last year, but handed it back to Campbell this year.
The festival requires approximately 75 volunteers per day, who each work a four hour shift, doing jobs from picking up trash to checking wrist bands.
There are approximately 300 names in the Juan de Fuca Festival database, Campbell said.
Anna Manildi, festival director, said Campbell’s contribution to the organization was enormous.
“She’s the most popular volunteer coordinator we’ve ever had,” Manildi said.
“People say she really knows to work with people — she appreciates them and takes care of them.
She gets what being a volunteer is about. She wants to make people happy.”
Manildi said Campbell’s position requires the ability to be flexible, to adjust when people don’t show up for their scheduled volunteer time. The person must also be even tempered and extremely organized.
“And you have to love what you do,” she said. “I always tell people, we’re putting on a festival but we’re performers too.”
Manildi said Campbell receives a small stipend for her position, but it doesn’t begin to compensate for the time she puts into the job.
While Campbell may seem plenty busy juggling three jobs, she has to be ready to drop them all when a more pressing call comes — she has also been a member of the Clallam County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue team since 2005.
To join the team she had to learn the needed skills, from search skills and high rope training to first aid and CPR, but she said her greatest skill was being able to hike long distances.
She’s only been on one search so far, but it paid off in an unexpected way — she was paired up for a 16-mile hike with a man who would become her boyfriend.
“We figured hiking together for 16 miles was a good test,” she said.
Campbell has nothing but praise for her new community, and the volunteers who run it.
She noted that she never has to recruit participants for any of her projects — people just raise their hands.
“The Peninsula Trails Coalition, an all-volunteer organization, has the motto, ‘Never underestimate the value of a volunteer,'” she said.
“I have learned over the last five years that volunteers of all ages and backgrounds can come together to make even the most complicated project a reality.
“Volunteers have a diversity of skills and knowledge, dedication, passion and an incredible ability to compromise and improvise.
“I am often thrilled and amazed.”
Campbell is quick to deflect praise, but wanted people to note that April 18 through 24 is National Volunteer Week.
“Everybody should make a special effort to thank a volunteer,” she said.
To volunteer for any of the organizations that Campbell coordinates for, she invites people to contact her personally by email at lorriecampbell201@hotmail.com or by phone at 360-775-4620.
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Features Editor Marcie Miller, who edits Peninsula Woman, can be reached at 360-417-3550 or at marcie.miller@peninsuladailynews.com.
