By definition, volunteers do what they do without expectation of compensation. They exchange their time, talents and resources for nothing but personal satisfaction, and their contributions to favorite causes are invaluable. Nowhere are the roles of volunteers more important than at CCA.

Without volunteers, this organization could not have achieved what it has in a quarter-century. In the absence of generous, enthusiastic members, imagine how much less manpower - and "mindpower" - would have been available for educational programs and management strategies, how many fewer eyes would have been focused on threats to our coastal resources.

The fingerprints of volunteers are on every level of the organization. It is as important that someone unload barbecue or clams from the back of a pickup truck as it is that someone serve as committee chair or chapter president - and in many cases, the same person accepts all three responsibilities.
Those who shy from volunteer service for fear they may be asked to give or do too much should consider the value of their presence in even a small amount, the impact of any volunteer contribution to an organization that depends on its members to participate in the process.

Here's an example of how little time it takes to make a difference. None of us is so busy that we couldn't find a single free hour in an entire year. You spend more time than that each year tying your shoes.

One hour. Multiplied by CCA's total membership. In total, that gift of time represents the work that would be done by 10 full-time employees at their desks 50 weeks per year for more than 3.5 years.
Volunteer participation is valuable far beyond the minutes and hours involved. Each of us has some unique talent, be it in our head or in our hands, that can be of tremendous benefit to an organization such as CCA. Some of us can count, and some of us can build. Some understand the law better than others, and some have the patience to teach a kid to tie a knot. Each of us can do something, and no matter what that something is, there is a place for it in CCA's work to conserve this nation's marine resources.

So why do they do it? For some people, the reward for volunteering is an instant, overwhelming sense of self-satisfaction. A job well done, no matter what the job, instills within them a great sense of pride and accomplishment. Others see an afternoon spent behind a membership table or planting sea grass or picking up bay-shore litter or analyzing a scientific report as single steps down a longer journey, one that ends with more fish in cleaner water.

Whether volunteers experience their sense of repayment now or later is personal. Either way, however, theirs is a tremendous contribution, and they are justified in feeling good about themselves - however and whenever they like - for having made it.

The concept goes largely unknown and unnoticed, but volunteer involvement in any organization also carries great political weight. It is difficult sometimes for politicians to gauge how many people care about a particular issue, but it is fairly simple to determine how much they care - the deeper their passion and commitment, the more willing people are to give of their own time and talents. People may write checks to a host of charities and organizations each year, but they tend to give of themselves personally only to those about which they care the most.

So often in the press, we read that "CCA" did this or that. The reason CCA gets the credit is because those publications could not possibly list all the volunteers who contributed to those successes.

When commercial and recreational fishermen were at odds over gillnets in Texas water, it was CCA volunteers who hammered home the importance of conservation to politicians, demonstrated the destruction caused by those nets and won gamefish status for red drum and speckled trout. When Floridians passed a constitutional amendment - by overwhelming margin - to overhaul commercial fishing regulations and ditch gillnets there, they did so because CCA volunteers sat in front of shopping malls and gathered the signatures needed to get that citizens' initiative on the state ballot. In every CCA state, the gears of conservation could not turn so smoothly or quickly without volunteers.

In researching this piece, I asked a CCA Texas staff member to imagine, just for a moment, doing her job without the help of volunteers. She paused briefly to consider the scenario, then said emphatically, "It couldn't be done."