On a chilly Saturday morning, Friends of the Preserve hosted a large group of one-time volunteers to work in the Preserve. The occasion was that Disney World had advertised on the Internet that if you do volunteer work in the community for one day you get a free ticket to Disney World. This offer has been in effect for over a month, and each work Saturday, the Friends have had new volunteers come out and work in the Preserve. Last Saturday was their busiest day, however, since 32 Disney volunteers showed up, and if you count the regulars plus the Parks and Recreation folks, there were 43 people altogether doing the work.

There will be one more opportunity for Disney people to volunteer, since the program ends on March 20th. The work they did was to pull up wedlia, a noxious plant that runs like ground cover and takes over everything in its path. With this Saturday, they cleared out almost all of it. Jim Rodwell is the point man for the regular volunteers, and he was really impressed with all of the work that was done with that many people. Anyone who wants to get a ticket to Disney World can come and work two weeks from now since the volunteers work every other Saturday. They can sign up on the Internet or call Jim Rodwell at 463-4292 or Terry Cain at 707-3015.

The Matanzas Preserve originally belonged to Dr. W.B. Winkler and his wife, who also owned the Beach Hotel (that was across the street from the Library). When they died, they passed the ownership of all of those acres along to their nurse, Martha Redd, who lived in a little brick cottage on the "S” curve across from the Seagrape Plaza.

Martha was an eccentric recluse who would not take any of the many offers to buy the land. She never did sell the land, and when she died, it went to her nieces and nephews.

They were quite willing to sell the land to developers, and very quickly steps were taken by the citizens of Fort Myers Beach to procure the land for preservation. A tremendous drive went on and the islanders raised approximately $175,000 to buy the 60 acres that are in the Preserve. The Preserve was then given to the Nature Conservancy, which managed the land from 1975 to 1995, when Lee County finally took it over.

During the reign of the Conservancy, nothing was done to improve the land and it just grew wild with all kinds of invasive plants and grasses. There were no trails through the Preserve, except rabbit trails, and visitors could not go into the Preserve to see what was on all of that land.

When Lee County took over the management of the Preserve, they opened up trails and began clearing up sections of the land so that visitors could go into it. It took years but the Friends of the Preserve took over responsibility for clearing the trails and Roger Clark, from the County, helped organize their work. Some of the original Friends were Tom Myers, Flip Harby, and Bill Van Duzer.

We talked with Tom Myers and found that the current officers of the Friends are Tom Myers, President, Roxie Smith, Vice President, Lois Gressman, Treasurer, and Roger Johnson, Secretary. Claude Bowyer has been active since the beginning and is still serving on the board.

Claude met with a serious accident a few weeks ago. He was crossing Estero Boulevard and a car hit him. He stayed in the hospital for three weeks and is now in Evans Care Center getting rehabilitation. He has a broken shoulder, a broken right leg, and a broken left foot.

We also talked with Ben Johnson last Saturday. He is the new Parks and Recreation manager of the Preserve. Saturday was his first day in the Preserve, since the Parks and Recreation department restructured its organization and Ben usually works in the Bonita Springs Park, and is now being stretched down to the beach to include the Matanzas Preserve.

Terry Cain is the Land Stewardship Co-coordinator from the Parks and Rec department and she has been working in the Preserve for years. She used to give tours of the Preserve, but now that is done by the Friends volunteers. Now Jim Rodwell gives tours on Thursdays at 9:00 a.m. and his wife, Dorothy gives ethnobotany tours on the last Wednesday of every month.

Lee County has put boardwalk trails through a large portion of the Preserve and the Rotary Club has built a pavilion out on the Back Bay and there is a boardwalk all the way to it. The main entrance to the Preserve is on Bay Street at the dead end, right next to the Historic Cottage. However, the Friends of the Preserve have been working on the entrance behind the Red Coconut Trailer Park, where there are only ground trails and it is much overgrown by exotic species. On most Saturdays, only eight or ten volunteers show up and they work very hard from 8:00 to 10:00 and have done a fantastic job of clearing out weeds and vines of all sorts.

The current roster of the working Friends includes Jim and Dorothy Rodwell, Pat Gano, Pat Tardiff, Chuck Schmidt, Roger Johnson, Sid Talley, Tom and Annie Babcock, Dagney Cowell, Joanna Harrington, Doug Ohlin, Mickey Green, Michael McCormick, Bob Taylor, and Hunter Woodard.

With the Disney volunteers, a lot of work was done and truck after truck load of weeds drove out of the bushes to get rid of it. You don't have to work a whole day to get a Disney ticket, you just have to work as a volunteer in a volunteer program. There are other volunteer programs in Lee County that you can sign up for, but the Friends hope that more people will show up a week for this Saturday, although the Disney program will have ended on the 20th. Disney was in hopes of getting one million people to volunteer in their communities all over Florida. They have met their goal with more than that. They also hoped that the volunteers would continue to work in their programs on their own after the special was over.

Jean Matthew