SVCA volunteer appreciation night features second chili cookoff
Sheepscot Valley Conservation Association President John Atwood crowns Gary Best the winner of the chili competition at SVCA’s annual volunteer appreciation celebration. Courtesy of Kristin Pennock
Sheepscot Valley Conservation Association President John Atwood crowns Gary Best the winner of the chili competition at SVCA’s annual volunteer appreciation celebration. Courtesy of Kristin Pennock
The board of the Sheepscot Valley Conservation Association showed its appreciation for the contributions of the organization's many volunteers on Wednesday, Feb. 12 by holding a dinner and the second SVCA chili cookoff. Each attendee had a chance to try a small sample cup of all nine chilies and then vote on their favorite. There was a variety of delicious choices including chicken/chickpea, lamb, venison, steak, traditional beef and several vegetarian options.
The winner this year was Gary Best of Whitefield, whose superb entry featured venison from a deer that he harvested. Dessert included a cake donated by Hannaford celebrating SVCA’s 20th year of water quality monitoring completed in 2013. SVCA wishes to thank all of the chili chefs as well as the local businesses that donated to the dinner: Hannaford, Yellowfront Grocery in Damariscotta and Shaw’s of Wiscasset.
SVCA is grateful to all of the volunteers who perform a variety of duties such as trail building and maintenance, water quality monitoring, preserve stewardship, maintaining the SVCA building, supporting advocacy efforts, building business relationships, preparing press releases and posters, helping plan special events, maintaining waterfowl nest boxes, general office assistance and much more. The office staff counted over 2,000 hours of volunteer time logged during the past year from over 100 volunteers and believes there were many more uncounted hours.
As Programs Manager Lynne Flaccus noted at the event, “The SVCA is successful because the great quality and quantity of work by our volunteers. We could not do this important work without them.” She also reminded folks that anyone wishing to volunteer can contribute as many or as few hours as they wish.
The volunteer dinner was held at the SVCA offices at 624 Sheepscot Road in Newcastle. The Sheepscot Valley Conservation Association is a member organization advocating shared stewardship of Maine’s 58-mile Sheepscot River since 1969. For more information about volunteer opportunities, visit our website at www.sheepscot.org or call the office at 207-586-5616.
Event Date
Address
United States
