In late June, some 30 employees of the Samsonite Corporation in Mansfield came out to Stony Brook for a Corporate Volunteer Day. They arrived ready to help with invasive plant removal, trail maintenance, and garden improvements.
Their impact was amazing! Four separate volunteer teams—each with their own corporate captains and a staff lead from Stony Brook—transformed the sanctuary by removing weeds and vines, opening up the waterfall vista, mulching the gardens, and layering the trails with wood chips to improve wheelchair access.
Visitors can’t help but notice the difference!
Equally impressive was the fact that Metcalf Materials donated sandstone for the trails and mulch for the gardens. Plus, Samsonite provided a $500 grant to purchase new trail maintenance tools for the sanctuary.
Thank you to all involved for making this a special day! We never take this kind of hands-on help and generosity for granted.
Volunteer Opportunities for Groups & Organizations
If you’re interested in connecting your company with opportunities to make a difference, we invite you to learn more about corporate volunteering at Stony Brook.
A woman as diverse and colorful as the outfits she wears with pride, Carol Bailey has graced Stony Brook Wildlife Sanctuary with over 44 years of service! Carol first came to Stony Brook when she began her career as a biology professor at Dean College. At first, she became involved with the Stony Brook Bird Club, the Stony Brook Camera Club, and the annual Fall Fair as a volunteer. Then, in the 1980s Carol began to offer her strengths as a teacher by working as a part-time naturalist for field trips and/or birthday parties. Unfortunately, health problems prevented her from continuing her naturalist guide work along the sanctuary trail. Never accepting limitations, however, Carol has continued to share her passion for teaching and the natural world as a weekend docent stationed along the trail, out on the boardwalk, or at the sanctuary building check in.
As I sat down to interview Carol, I came to appreciate the strong and independent woman that she is. Born in the “Baby Boomer” years, Carol was a woman who looked beyond the social norms of her day unafraid to blaze her own path. In fact, in 1988 she became the first female service line umpire for Centre Court Wimbledon (a task considered “too difficult” for women), and later that same year she held the same post in the Olympics in Seoul Korea. Indeed, her honors and interests have been incredibly diverse over the course of her life. She was, for example, a Peace Corp volunteer in Ghana, West Africa, an inductee into Muhlenberg College’s Athletic Hall of Fame, a taxidermist, and the only Girl Scout to be awarded the reptile and amphibian badge for the Mid-Atlantic area. When asked to define what motivated her and her ambitions, she replied with simple wisdom, “If you have a passion, you just do it!”
