Volunteer Spotlight - Sherry Seavers

Sherry Seavers began a multi-faceted volunteer career with World Bird Sanctuary in 2008, after a visit to World Bird Sanctuary.

During her visit, Sherry, a graphic designer, noticed that some of our brochures needed updating.  With a little trepidation, Sherry approached us about helping us redesign our brochures on a volunteer basis.  After all, she didn’t want to seem critical, but it was obvious that we needed help – and she was willing to help.  With a resounding, “Yes!  Please!” Sherry embarked on a massive project to update our logo, brochures, and eventually, our website.

Sherry's company, S3 Media, specializes in graphic design and web development and hosting services for non-profits.  What would have been a simple redesign of a few pieces of printed material turned into a long-term project to modernize our communication channels, including our website.  Sherry pulled her husband Mike into the work, too.  Mike is a hot shot computer programming guy – Mike makes our website work, Sherry maintains it and makes it look good.   You can see the fruits of their labor at www.worldbirdsanctuary.org – a website so suited to what we do that other similar organizations have copied the format!

Sherry with Kona, her personal assistant, in her office

 In addition to volunteering graphic design and web-building talent, Sherry is a regular volunteer in our wildlife hospital.  She helps treat sick and injured birds, cleans up after them.  Sherry has also volunteered to bring rescued birds to our wildlife hospital on occasion, since we do not have the manpower to run a rescue service.

Sherry working on a bald eagle in the wildlife hospital 

It is impossible to quantify the value of Sherry’s volunteer contribution to World Bird Sanctuary.  In monetary terms, it is more than we could have afforded to rebuild our website, but the impact is certainly greater than that.  The website and brochures have increased awareness of World Bird Sanctuary and increased the number of visitors that have come to the sanctuary to learn about birds and what we do to save them.  In addition, Sherry’s work on our business cards, logo, brochures and website combined has established a recognizable brand for World Bird Sanctuary across all of our communication pieces and channels, strengthening our public profile and our credibility in the public eye.

According to Independent Sector, an advocacy group in Washington D.C. – the value of a single volunteer hour to an organization is $22.14.  With Sherry’s five years of consistent volunteer work at World Bird Sanctuary, and her many hours behind-the-scenes working on our printed materials and websites, she is truly an integral member of our wonderful volunteer team!  

To find out more about how YOU can volunteer Click Here.

Submitted by Catherine Redfern, World Bird Sanctuary Director of Development