What Happened?
A key road providing entry to a state park in Hawaii had been closed due to flooding. With livelihoods at risk, local businesses and surfers rolled up their sleeves and fixed it themselves. In eight days.
Backstory
Polihale State Park on Kauai is a stunning beach park that is difficult to access. After flooding knocked out the only access road, the state’s Department of Land and Natural Resources assessed the damaged and put a $4 million price tag on repairs; that was money the department din’t have.
Without road repair, the state park would have likely been closed through at least the summer of 2013. Local surfers and businesses reliant on the state park felt two years would be too long to wait; the owner of a kayak tour business in the park saw bankruptcy on the horizon.
Action Plan
The owner of the kayak business teamed up with a local surfer, and together they harnessed volunteers, who provided enough labor and machinery to start the repairs in March. This required bridge building, reconstructing bathroom facilities, and the use of heavy machinery to clear miles of flood damaged roadways. In eight days the construction was complete.
Lessons
Local governments need to find ways to harness local volunteers, whose passion and livelihoods often make great things happen. Gov1 has covered this phenomenon, with articles about volunteers in Los Angeles and towns in Minnesota, which demonstrate how municipalities can actually volunteers achieve complemetary goals.
Dig Deeper
CNN’s original coverage of the volunteer work to repair Polihale can be found here. You can also visit the official Web site for the park.
To see how some cities are actually harnessing and managing volunteer workforces, review these operational and policy examples:
- Arlington, Texas MVP Program
- Bend, Oregon
- Boca Raton
- Lewiston, ME (also available is their application form)
- Marin County (CA) Water District and events notice
- Renton, WA
- Sacramento, CA
Some communities even honor or present awards to volunteers, which encourages participation and highlights programs:
- Fairfield, OH Award Winners
- Farmington Hills, MI, Volunteer Recognition Awards
- Frisco, TX award announcement (April 2012)
- Los Altos, CA, Volunteer Service Awards Committee
- Rockledge, FL Volunteer of the Year Awards
- Ventura, CA “Mayor’s Volunteer Award”
And finally, we have aggregated sample volunteer award nomination forms, in the event that Gov1 readers want to create their own programs and use existing forms as templates:
- Nomination form from Bloomington, IN (PDF)
- Nomination form from Costa Mesa, CA (Web form)
- Nomination form from Farmington Hills, MI (PDF)
- Nomination form from Marysville, WA (PDF)
- Nomination form from Santa Clara, CA (Web form)
- Nomination form from Tennessee (Microsoft Word)
- Nomination form from Wilmington, NC (PDF)