World Eagle Day: PGAVIA
PGAV Destinations kicked off spring with our first official corporate volunteering day by helping the World Bird Sanctuary with their annual World Eagle Day. The opportunity came just as PGAV launched its new PGAVIA initiative, our formal volunteer program which creates opportunities for our staff to volunteer throughout the region with environmentalism, conservation, and animal welfare efforts.
John Kemper, PGAV Destinations vice president, has volunteered at the World Bird Sanctuary for years, and was just elected as the President of their board last year. This is one of John’s favorite events, so it was perfect timing to get the PGAV team involved.
I served on the morning shift with one of our newest destination designers, Jake Smojver, and the excellent Director of Publications and PR for the World Bird Sanctuary, Marion Ernst. Our duty, which we happily accepted, was to sell memberships, bench sponsorships, and sign people up for the Adopt-a-Bird program (a really cool perk where you can sponsor a specific bird at the Sanctuary year-round. Hey, you can even sign up online!)
(Fun fact: it costs $1,000 annually to feed a Bald Eagle, and the World Bird Sanctuary has more than 20!)
Marion was tremendously educational all morning, teaching us about the various birds at the Sanctuary, answering questions about ones that DIDN’T live there, and telling us stories about how the Sanctuary was started and how it runs today. She was even trusting enough to let Jake and I pitch visitors quite early on for memberships, and we actually landed a number of them! (One of them being our own destination designer, Tony Schmidt and his family!)
While early Sunday morning was a little slow to start until church let out; once the bells started ringing and a couple volunteers joined our table with an adorable Screech Owl, Oliver, the visitors just started pouring in. People loved marveling at Oliver, who was cool as a cucumber and was fantastic at posing for pictures. The young volunteers were excellent at helping answer questions about Screech Owls, and were great at showcasing this awesome owl.
(Second fun fact: the tiny screech owl can take down a full grown duck!)
One of the greatest coincidences was when a family stated they wanted to Adopt a Bird; they went through the catalog to pick out the one they wanted; and after they picked Oliver, only then did they realize he was perched just four feet away on the volunteer’s arm! They were so excited to meet their bird right away, in-the-feather!
(Third fun fact: Screech Owls might live only up to three years in the wild; they’re tiny, easy prey for bigger raptors. But at the sanctuary, they can live up to an amazing 20 years!)
Other PGAVers were stationed around the Sanctuary, helping kids craft paper bald eagles (which we saw an endless stream of pass our booth), or helping visitors check out wildlife books from the Sanctuary’s library. Near the end of our shift, we saw one dad weighed down with a huge stack of National Geographic magazines, and his two daughters merrily skipping down the path ahead of him.
It was a beautiful day to help out, and apparently a very successful one! Jeff Meshach, Director of the World Bird Sanctuary, followed up with us on Monday to let us know that they had between 1,800 and 1,900 visitors that day, and that all four shows delivered by guest speaker Bill Voelker were packed.
If you haven’t been out or donated to this St. Louis gem before, then get out there! And I was telling Jake: when you leave, make sure to drive through the free Lone Elk State Park. When’s the last time you drove past a heard of buffalo without a barrier!?
