This Saturday, Aug. 16, Andy Lee Field in Woodstock will come alive with the 21st annual Volunteers’ Day – A Day of Gratitude, a unique celebration focused on community volunteers past and present. Organizers tout the event’s link to the lineage of the community.
“I think we have a remarkable abundance of volunteers,” said Sam Magarelli, Volunteers’ Day Committee member of Woodstock Appreciates its Volunteers (WAIV), which organizes and presents the event. “It’s just a theory, but many of the people from the peace and love population settled in the area and laid down roots. It’s like an alchemy where the Woodstock Generation and the locals blended into a community of volunteers.”
As Magarelli explained, the event isn’t about one single volunteer, but rather all volunteers; the guest of honor is everyone.
Cast as a town picnic, Volunteers’ Day promises music, food, fun and fireworks, the latter organized by the five volunteer companies of the Woodstock Fire District for the 30th straight year. While the entire day is centered in Andy Lee Field and some effort is made for the events to occur on the same day, the fireworks and Volunteers’ Day aren’t officially connected.
Among the many hats he wears, Evan Holland is one of five fire commissioners of the Woodstock Fire District, which covers 69 square miles, including not only Woodstock but also hamlets like Bearsville, Shady and Lake Hill. Though he’s been with the district for just shy of a decade, Holland said he understood that the fireworks are planned for the third Saturday in August to coincide with the timing of the fabled 1969 Woodstock Music and Art Fair.
While the fireworks unite members of the entire Woodstock Fire District, they’ll enjoy the show but remain ready if their services are needed.
“We deploy a number of our rigs from all of our different companies around the Woodstock cemetery back on Elwin Quarry up on Rock City Road to make sure if there’s any fire event or medical event in town, or as a result of the fireworks, we’re ready to go,” Holland said. “We deploy at least 40 or 50 people at night and probably eight or 10 pieces of equipment all around town during the fireworks so that we’re responding within seconds.”
Another key piece of the puzzle predating Volunteers’ Day is renowned carpenter, artist and guitarist Rennie Cantine’s participation; he’s played every year since the first fireworks show.
“It’s just one of my favorite days of the year, for sure,” said Cantine. “Thirty years ago, the fire company started doing fireworks at the rec field. I asked the fire chief if I could bring my band and play for free and he said sure. And then we got invited back every year.”
This year, Cantine will join Sabrina and the Gems in the 7 p.m. pre-fireworks slot. Earlier performances are planned by the Free Range Singers (2 p.m.), the Levin Brothers (3 p.m.), Mona Freaka (6 p.m.) and a special guest (4:30 p.m.), which as of press time has yet to be revealed.
“After the first year or second year, other friends in other bands started saying, ‘Hey, can we come and play?’ so we ended up getting bands playing for free all day and people started showing up earlier and picnicking. It’s such an honor and I have such beautiful memories. It’s just a gorgeous day of friendship and camaraderie, and it makes me so proud to be born and raised in Woodstock.”
Magarelli said, “It’s a wonderful outpouring of community, clearly letting the volunteers know that they see them, they appreciate them and they want to celebrate. And it’s a heartening thing.”
That sense of community spirit extends into the more than 30 restaurants that donate food for Volunteers’ Day, and around the same number of local shops and nonprofits that donate raffle prizes. Volunteers are given a raffle ticket, and only volunteers can win.
“It’s a thank-you to all the wonderful community members who are volunteers to let them know how significant they are to the community,” Magarelli said.
Holland said the face of the Woodstock Fire District may have changed over the years, with many of the multigenerational volunteer old guard retiring, and many replaced by transplants from New York City and elsewhere. But they’re connected not only in service, but also in their love of Woodstock and the Catskills.
“We live in a very magical place, and all you have to do is go away for a few days to realize just how wonderful what we have here is — from the arts and culture scene to the natural environment, to the richness of the people, not in finances but in character,” he said.
Holland said that volunteer firefighters are “the underbelly of the community” who “go out on people’s worst days” while answering emergency calls, sometimes in the most extreme weather the Hudson Valley has to offer, calling it a “difficult, but rewarding experience.”
And like other volunteers, they may not ask to be thanked, but they appreciate it all the same.
“This day, it’s hard to get it right, it’s hard to put it on,” Holland said. “But it’s a wonderful experience when there’s 1,500 or 2,000 people — which is a third of your town — all on Andy Lee Field celebrating together. And on their way out, the kudos that you get, or they pat your shoulders and just say thank you for what you do, is just a wonderful community-building event. And we get great joy out of being the underbelly of the community.”
Another component of Volunteers’ Day is trying to foster a sense of duty in kids in the community, which for WAIV includes a scholarship awards program for children of volunteers.
“If any of the volunteers have a graduating senior in their family, the kids can apply through their schools and we give a $100 award to them for graduating.”
There are nine annual scholarship awards, three each in the Onteora, Kingston and Saugerties school districts.
“We’re trying not only to honor the volunteers in this way, but also one of our missions is to model for our children that we value volunteering,” Magarelli said. A separate $400 is also donated to the Woodstock Fire District’s scholarship fund.
Magarelli said Volunteers’ Day was a celebration of volunteers from a grateful community.
“Volunteers are like royalty,” he said. “They do so much and they never ask to be thanked. Over the years, the volunteers have noted that we don’t have to thank them, but it feels good to be thanked. This is a way of saying thanks.”
The 21st annual Volunteers’ Day – A Day of Gratitude will happen rain or shine, starting at 2 p.m. at Andy Lee Field. The Woodstock Fire District’s 30th annual fireworks will commence at dusk, with a rain date of Saturday, Aug. 23.
Join the family! 
