By MAGGIE MCMURRAY
Moapa Valley Progress
Partners in Conservation thanked the Moapa Valley Rotary Club for their service as goodwill ambassadors for Logandale Trails with a special presentation at a meeting last month. PIC administrator Elise McAllister came to an early morning meeting and thanked club members for the many hours they spent at the trails visiting with campers, handing out surveys, answering questions, and passing out trash bags to help people leave the area as clean as they found it.
Rotary members took to the trails beginning about three years ago in conjunction with a grant received by PIC for the improvement of the trails system. Rotarians met with campers and passed out information, surveys and trash bags. They also let visitors know about local businesses and directed them to local service professionals when needed.
McAllister explained that most survey companies consider a return rate of 15%-20% to be a success. But thanks to the efforts of the Rotarians, the surveys they passed out and collected for PIC had a whopping 72% return rate. Surveys asked campers for opinions and suggestions for improvements to the area.
According to the statistics kept and presented by McAllister, over the last three years, club members put up some pretty impressive numbers. The volunteers spoke with over 1,000 people, handed out 320 surveys, collected 230 surveys, handed out 249 maps, 111 goodie bags, and 43 trash bags. Members made 49 trips out to the trails for a total of 454 hours spent serving the community and the visitors to the trail system.
PIC especially honored the four Rotarians and their wives who spent the most hours out at the trail system helping and informing the groups they met. Club members Ken Robison, Dennis Anderson, Chuck Utgard, and Sue McMahill were presented with jackets that were beautifully embroidered with the PIC logo. They were also given embroidered scarves for their wives, who were usually at their sides during the trail rides.
Rotarians felt honored by the thanks they received from McAllister and PIC. “It’s been a pleasure and an honor to work with PIC and Elise,” Ken Robison said. “We find it a lot of fun and very rewarding to go out, take surveys, and give any other assistance we can.”
The Moapa Valley Rotary club is a service organization and is currently searching for service-minded individuals with time to donate to their community. They meet Wednesday mornings at 7 am at the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension Building A for a breakfast meeting and again for various service projects around the valley during the year. For more information on becoming part of Rotary, you can contact Dana Utgard, Moapa Valley Rotary Club President, at dana@utgard.us.
