Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Volunteers needed in Minnesota

I have mentioned this in Dave's Chickenbuck thread, and I'll bring it up again. One of our own, and a bona fide good guy needs some help. Berettaman spearheads a Youth Outdoors Day up in Alexandria. This will be the 4th year for this event, I believe. It keeps growing every year. They are expecting over 2,000 kids this year, and should shatter that mark.

The event is held on Sunday, August 28th. It is totally free of charge to the kids, and their adult attendees. There will be exhibits, vendors, lots of giveaways for the kids, and lots of seminars to help hook these kids on the out of doors. Displays and seminars run the gamut. Anything from archery shoots, muzzleloaders for the kids to shoot, duck hunting fishing, trapping GPS use and woodscraft. The highlight of the show in the past has been a trick shooting exhibit at day's end that is very popular. The kids will all get a gift bag full of goodies, and there will be lots of door prizes ranging from archery equipment, to fishing gear, bb guns, and lots of other stuff.

With 2000 kids coming, it takes a lot of people to keep this running smoothly. Your help would be greatly appreciated. Here's your chance to give a little back, and get some kids fired up about hunting fishing, trapping, and the likes. Look at your calendars, free up just one day for the betterment of the sports we all love. Volunteers are needed for everything from traffic control, regrsitration, working with the exhibitors to do their displays, set up tear down, clean up, and everything else that goes with running an event this size. As for me, I will be most likely working with the guy doing the muzzleloader exhibition. This is hands on-the kids shoot the guns. I will be one of his loaders.

Free up a day guys! Everyone can come up with one day to help. Please contact Berettaman to volunteer. If you have any questions I'll try to answer them for you too.

'Hope to see you guys there.

TTT

TTT

Sounds great

Whelenman, thanks for your interest. He needs all the help he can get. Best way to proceed would be to message Berettaman for details. He needs to establish a head count for volunteers so he know how many he has, how many he'll be feeding (you get lunch out of the deal) and how many volunteer t-shirts he needs to get.

Hope to see you there-stop by the muzzleloader shooting exhibit while you're there. I'll be loader for the instructor.

gopher:

I would love to help out but Minnesota is a long hike from Colorado.

I enjoy volunteering with my grand-son's boy scout troop and it's very rewarding.

KC

Which brings up a good point here guys. If we all volunteered to do 1 event, or one outing, think how many kids we could impact? It doesn't have to be a big shindig like this. Heck, find a kid in your neighborhood and take him fishing, or dust off an old bb gun and show him how to shoot it. There's endless opportunities to make a big difference without spending lots of money.

Time to give a little back, guys.

I have and I do.

Thankks Steelhead.

I can't make it to Minnesota On the 28th, but I would gladly contribute $100 to this worthwhile cause.

Please tell me where to send the check.

donsm70

Thank you very much for your generous offer. If you could contact Berettaman here via personal message, he can get you pointed in the right direction. He oversees they whole event and does a great job organizing this huge effort.

Hey Donsm70-where abouts are you from in Western Pa? I'm originally from the Youngstown, Ohio area, now living in Minnesota. 'Still come back every few years to hunt from our deer camp up in Clearfield County.

There are many similar events (none as large that I know of) held throughout Pa. each year. I've helped with one Clearfield county and my son has attended them in both Clearfield and Montgomery Counties.

The Pa. Game Commission maintains information about them on their website. Link:

https://www.register-ed.com/events/view/81340

Dale

Thanks for posting this Jeff! Yes we are going to need a lot of volunteer help so if it works for someone that would be great. Or bring a carload of kids, that would be even better! The event is put on by Douglas County Pheasants Forever and Viking Sportsmen (2 locally based conservation organizations).

We can be found on Facebook (Youthoutdooractivityday-alexandria mn) and our website will be up in early august (youthoutdooractivityday.org).

As Gopher stated, this is a completely free event; we will not allow any attendee to pay for anything. We are blessed to have a local community that has stepped up to the plate as well as this year we even have a few national sponsors in Cabelas, Scheels, and Purina. However, I ordered 2,350 kids shirts and 300 volunteer shirts. Costs this year have went up quite a bit (we had 1,391 kids last year and 542 kids the year before). With parents, we will be around 4,000 people at the event. Feeding 4,000 people is a costly and logistically challenging feat. I am really surprised at how those numbers just create so many more costs (ie porta potties were almost an afterthought in year 1, now those type of costs add up quickly!). One way or another, we will keep it free though.

New this year is our giveaways. We were awarded a grant from the Minnesota DNR to cover the costs of some of the equipment we needed to upgrade (ie more fishing rods for the fishing station so we could run 8 lines at the same time) and we are actually giving away fishing rods/reels, bows, and BB guns through that grant. The grant did not cover any of our "costs", just the giveaways and equipment upgrades.

We did a lot of research into the recruitment and retention of youth and are trying to employ the newest concepts in recruitment like getting non-shooting parents to try out archery or trap shooting. We are trying an innovative way to do this by incentivizing the adults to do so! We are also going to track participation in related activities after the event...or attempt to do so as that is proving to be a tricky concept.

The man knows from whence he speaks. You guys really need to come out and see this effort first hand. It's all for the kids and their parents. Our guys are really good at stepping up to the plate to support a cause. Here's your chance to pay it forward guys.

I missed a national sponsor. Walmart (through their local store). They have done a lot to support us including about a dozen volunteers.

Dean-if you know who those Walmart volunteers are, remind them about the VAP or Volunteerism Always Pays program. I forgot all about this. I believe if we work your event and turn in the correct paperwork, we can get you and additional monetary donation through the company. I'll inquire about this tomorrow at work.

Is that where they pay us for every hour Walmart employees volunteer at our event? If so, we are already set up with that.

I'll get it set up for me too. Sorry I forgot about it until now.

If anyone's thinking about helping out on the 28th, please let me or Berettaman know so we can get an accurate head count for the event. We really need your help guys. Anyone interested in going from the Twin Cities area can either caravan with us, or we can give one or two guys a ride. It's a fun day guys. Please give it some thought and join us to introduce some kids to the out of doors.