GORC hosts a thank you party in November each year that is close to our founding date way back in 1998. The party is a celebration of our volunteers’ hard work and dedication to designing, building and maintaining singletrack around St. Louis. This year, up to November 3rd and not including the Greensfelder trail build, GORC had volunteered more than 3,110 volunteer hours to the region’s park systems. This excludes administrative hours such as website updates, emails, graphic work, planning and other back-office duties. We were excited to see many volunteers show up at the start of the party that couldn’t make the trail build – the party honors ALL volunteers for the year and we know many couldn’t attend the Greensfelder trail building event.
This year we hosted a scavenger hunt showcasing Fossil Ridge, Beulah and the Scenic Overlook. Dozens of participants rode their bikes in no particular order to each stop that was described in a one sentence clue. Winners received some hot jams and jellies made from scratch by the Barton family. A few of our top volunteers, in terms of hours donated, were honored and received sweet swag from one of our great supporting shops Ballwin Cycles! They also complemented our volunteer raffle swag and nearly everyone walked away with something. Top swag included two rogue hoes and bike helmets.
Amazing pulled Pork BBQ, crazy-tasty bbq beans, chili stew and cornbread rounded out the main course with a huge full-size cake capping off the day of great eating. Two kegs containing Schlafly Tazmanian IPA and Dry-Hopped APA along with several growlers of Schlafly and donated beers kept thirsty volunteers coming back for more. By nightfall, a few games of GORC-themed cornhole (bean bag toss), Jenga and tired kids running around the Beulah shelter beating each other with blow-up trail tools the last beer was poured and it was time to wrap it up. Floating kegs were loaded back up, the shelter was returned to its natural, clean state and the best trail volunteers in Missouri and Illinois concluded that riding bikes on well-designed and maintained trails is a great thing!
We don’t take our volunteers for granted and we hope to see you at the next trail building day! The 2015 volunteer t-shirt reads – “The Trail Starts Here” and isn’t that so true!
