You see them every day going about your regular day.

They are the retired volunteers, using their time to fill their hearts. They man the non-profit thrift stores and boutiques along the highways. They also dip their hands into improving the land around them.

People such as Nancy Lind, Sam Livingstone, Lu Winsor and Roy Lampson invest huge blocks of volunteer time to the 224 acres of wilderness oasis known as the Rocky Creek Conservation Area. All are retired.

Lind, a public access advocate, has always been involved in various activities, mostly focused on environmental concerns.

For the last decade she has, like a mother hen, taken the conservation area under her wing. It started as wild land and now has dirt trails, benches and picnic tables.

“People look after what they use, what they can see working,” said Lind, a former teacher.

Still working to keep the area clear, accessible and vandalism-free, she took on the idea of converting Haley Park into a public park. The Haley family is part of the original manufacturers of Brown and Haley’s Almond Roca.

“State parks should do what state parks do,” Lind said. “That is to provide recreation access to everybody. When I say ‘everybody’ that’s what worries some people.”

Lind says money was promised for park development but never came through.

They know her down at many other volunteer groups. Volunteers gravitate toward civic groups like the Lions Club, though membership in them has consistently declined nationally over the last 20 years.

The Key Peninsula Lions Club holds a citizen of the year celebration every spring to acknowledge people in the community who have gone the extra mile to improve it. This year’s celebration, March 15, will be held in the Key Peninsula Civic Center. The social hour, with a no host bar, begins at 6:30pm, and dinner, with the featured keynote speaker of Admiral Herb Bridge (ret.), starts at 7 p.m.

A list of volunteer opportunities, ranging from being a child advocate to filing work, can be found at www.kitsapgov.com/volunteer/current.htm, the Kitsap County Web site.

Schools are a great place to feel wanted. Sam Wells, 76, volunteers at Discovery Elementary School as a math and reading tutor for fifth-graders. He also builds birdhouses for the students and the school to sell. Wells said there are rewards to the work.

“After they get to know you they treat you a little different,” he said in a quiet, raspy voice. “I guess it’s trust. They look at you and stare at first. But they change.”

On birthdays he gets a huge card with all the student’s names scrawled and printed on it. Birthdays and other parties are some of the best times, Wells said.
“They give you hugs,” said Wells, who has no children of his own. “It’s nice. In fact it’s real nice. If they don’t have a father as an image, I can shine a little brighter.”.