Volunteer Spotlight, Jill Long
Jill Long
Resident volunteer Jill Long helps Bahia Honda State Park and its visitors in many ways. Jill is one of those people with a creative mind and spirit and it shows in everything she does.
You may find Jill painting in the park while interpreting her subject to many a passerby. You might find Jill walking the beaches and collecting marine debris from the shoreline. Then you’ll likely find her teaching a group of folks how to repurpose the crab trap line she just collected.
Since hundreds of miles of crab trap line are pulled from surrounding waters every year, it became a focus of the park to find a way to repurpose it. Jill brainstormed a demonstration station for our Earth Day event. She decided to repurpose crab trap line into decorative macramé plant hangers and trivets, while other volunteers were making crab trap door mats alongside her.
On the heels of this event, her father challenged her to create a sea turtle out of the crab trap line. Jill took on the challenge. Since then, she has spent nearly 100 hours developing a beautiful piece of interpretive art for the park.
This sea turtle is named Myrtle and she will be displayed near the beach with signage to explain the perils of marine debris and what our visitors can do to help. Myrtle was completely constructed out of marine debris.
Jill's creative thought process has helped us rethink and repurpose items that would have remained in our oceans or ended up in a landfill. We are lucky to have a volunteer like Jill.
Be sure to zoom in and check out those Celtic knots and fancy weaves on the turtle shell.