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Dan Niesen has been volunteering at the Urban Ecology Center for around 10 years. He has been an outdoorsman his whole life and feels it’s important to give back to the community.
“I have been an outdoorsman, loved the outdoors, and this was a way of paying back to a community that I’m essentially part of, we’re all part of it. I feel that it’s important that we have to give back as a society and that’s basically one of the ways that I chose this one.”
Since volunteering, Dan has met many new people and built new friendships. Friendship is the most rewarding part about volunteering for him.
“The people that are around I’ll have a lot of the same ideas about life and what we are doing and what our purpose is, and it’s just been really being social and being with people.I important part when you get old is you have to find outlets for us to interact with other people. And in this case...we are all part of the same family when we are at the Urban Ecology Center.”
Dan has seen growth through friendship which has translated into his personal life.
““Every human has to have interaction, it’s part of life. When you don’t seek out interaction then you shrivel up and die like some plants. It’s important to me… [that] you got to find ways to interact with people.”
Susan Weistrop is a regular volunteer at the Urban Ecology Center. She started volunteering six and a half years ago after she retired from working at the school of Architecture and Urban Planning at UWM.
“I decided that I wanted to work again that way and I have had some experience with the ecology center for planning some of the environmental activities with my students and with folks at the ecology center and I felt that it was a really wonderful institution and well run and a great place to volunteer.”
Since volunteering, Weistrop has learned more about the environment and has met new people that all volunteer for the same reasons.
“First of all it allows me to be in an environment where I am around people of all ages working together on a common cause and it gives a lot of meaning to my life. I feel a tremendous amount about the environment by working with the wonderful staff here, and my fellow co-workers, many of them know a lot more than I do about environmental subjects.”
Hannah is a newer volunteer at the Urban Ecology Center, only volunteering here for about one year. Hannah studied the environment in college and enjoys being outside and in nature.
“I have a environmental degree in ecology and botany, So I want to continue building my knowledge on environmental conservation and plants and trees. Being outside is something that I love to do so I thought that Urban Ecology Center was a perfect place to do that.”
Hannah has a range of volunteering jobs but appreciates the people that work and also volunteer at the Urban Ecology Center for being able to build networks.
“It’s something that I really enjoy to do in terms of meeting people and building my networks. The Urban Ecology Center is certainly a place that I love to be. It’s certainly enabled me to make a lot of friends and meet a lot of people here as a new person in this country and mostly like minded people as well which is really important to me, progressive [and] environmentally conscious people.”
She also appreciates the cause that the Urban Ecology Center is doing; helping the land in Milwaukee.
When Melinda Vernon retired, she knew that she wanted to be out in nature.
“When I retired one thing I really wanted to do was spend more time in nature. So, I have done a number of things, both up at Schlitz Audubon and here at the Urban Ecology Center. This just seemed like an interesting project to help restore the land here.”
Vernon is another Tuesday morning regular volunteer and has met many new people as well as developed friendships from volunteering at the Urban Ecology Center.
“That’s something I try very hard not to miss because it provides an outlet for me to learn more about nature, it gets me out and moving and using my muscles and being active. What I really didn’t expect but I have found is a little community of friends here that I like to stay in touch with. After we are done volunteering we go out for coffee and share aspects about our lives.”
Through volunteering Vernon has become more knowledgeable about certain aspects of the environment.
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