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Meet Our VolunteersWe couldn't do what we do without the help of hundreds of people each year who volunteer their time and talent to protect our coast. Here are just a just a few of the people who give so freely of their time. We'll feature new volunteers from time to time. So check back often. Wayne and Mary Grossnickle, Sneads Ferry
Retired since 2000, Wayne and Mary moved to Chadwick Bay in Sneads Ferry. They soon developed an interest in oysters, joining the Shellfish Gardeners of North Carolina and the federation. Despite less-than-perfect field conditions, the Grossnickles have participated in all aspects of our oyster habitat restoration program. They have also helped with the stewardship of the Morris Landing Clean Water Preserve and volunteered at festivals. Wayne and Mary deserve our thanks and recognition as true leaders in coastal stewardship. Meg Rawls, Morehead City
Much of Meg’s support for the federation has been behind the scenes, as the secretary for the board of directors, chairwoman of the Central Board Committee and as a volunteer for other program and policy initiatives. She has dedicated time to restoration projects at North River Farms, clean-up events at Hoop Pole Creek and has helped at the Native Plant Sale, King Mackerel and the Blues Are Running concerts, local festivals and other events. As a biology instructor at Carteret Community College, Meg has involved her students with many of these same projects and has worked with them to create and maintain the ShoreKeeper garden at the federation headquarters. Most recently, Meg served as project director for a project at the community college that has restored 1,000 feet of eroding shoreline and involved more than 1,000 people who volunteered more than 4,000 hours of work. Tom Thomason, Nags Head
Tom spent 24 years in the Air Force and reached the rank of colonel. During 1985 and ’86, he was an acting assistant deputy undersecretary of defense under President Reagan.
Tom retired in 1997 and moved to Kill Devil Hills from their long-time home of West Springfield, Virginia. “I was ready to take some walks on the beach,” Tom says. But beach combing wasn’t enough. The Thomasons soon became involved in a variety of volunteer programs in the community. When the federation’s Northeast volunteer program began in earnest in 2006, Tom and Lynn were among the first to sign up. An avid gardener, Tom’s efforts have been particularly helpful to the region’s rain garden program. He says he keeps volunteering because of the staff’s smiling faces—and the ability to help out while keeping active.
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How does a couple, one originally from Wales and the other a retired captain with the New York City Police Department, end up knee-deep in a salt marsh with hands full of oysters? Volunteering for the federation is just one way that Wayne and Mary Grossnickle spend their free time helping to protect and restore our coast. 
The question is not what Meg Rawls has done as federation volunteer, but what hasn’t she done in her 12 years as a volunteer and federation board member. 
If you look at the pictures from the Northeast Region during the last several years, one face keeps appearing again and again. He’s there in the rain gardens at Manteo Middle School, planted in November 2006. He’s there helping landscape the grounds at the northeast’s new office in the summer of 2008 and he’s there in the shots from last winter bagging oyster shells at Jockeys Ridge. Tom Thomason has been one of the region’s most enthusiastic and loyal volunteers. Accompanied often by his wife, Lynn, he’s turned federation volunteer events into a means for accomplishing two personal goals—helping the community while getting as much exercise as possible.
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