Volunteer Spotlight-Scott Newcombe

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In late 2006 Scott Newcombe happened to spot a poster advertising an event titled, “Duwamish Alive”, sponsored by People For Puget Sound (PFPS.)  The timing was perfect, as Scott was looking for hands-on volunteer work he could perform outside an office setting.  Though the advertised event had already taken place, Scott was intrigued by the volunteer possibilities available at PFPS and he signed up for his first project.

Today, Scott is a Sound Steward, who volunteers approximately 27 hours a month to leading or participating in an average of five restoration events each month and supporting the events by picking up and delivering tools, making phone calls, and carrying out other tasks.

But it is not just the number of hours Scott devotes to restoring the Puget Sound that matters to his supervisor.  According to People For Puget Sound Restoration Ecologist, Dhira Brown, Scott makes himself available whenever he learns there is a job to be done, he always follows-through with his commitments, he initiates projects that he knows will help with restoration, he takes on whatever role is needed on projects, and he performs his work well.

Most recently, Scott built sieves to sort beach sediment, in search of forage fish, spending six hours, alone, just shopping for supplies!  Did he always devote so much time to this work?  Not at first… the working conditions on his first restoration job, were so miserable – slipping and sliding in the mud on a cold, rainy, Fall day, with planes flying low overhead every few minutes – he decided to try something else.

But in the Fall of 2009, Scott received a call from PFPS and was asked if he’d be interested in receiving training as a Sound Steward.  He’d get to learn valuable information about restoration during two classroom sessions and two field sessions, after which he would donate 40 hours with the Sound Steward program.  This appealed to him and, with the additional education, and some better weather days, he started participating in a couple Sound Steward projects each month.  Now after only 3 years, Scott has put in over 400 hours!

Scott has enjoyed increasing his involvement with the Sound Steward program and becoming one of its leaders, as it allows him to “articulate through action what [he] believed in but hadn’t been doing anything about.”  Seeing sea life, like the mother and baby orca he watched during his work, yesterday, inspires him to keep going.

Thank you Scott for your leadership and dedicated work on behalf of our Puget Sound!