By Riki Bolster
Why volunteer? Why give away your time for free? “We live in an amazing community and it only stays that way because people volunteer,” Marina Saffel, volunteer for the Ormewood Park Makers Festival said.
Nicole Palmietto, co-chair of the 2026 Makers Festival, said as a new resident to SAND and a new mother with a young baby, she found herself isolated and a bit lonely. “Volunteer,” her husband urged. And she did, helping organize the Makers Festival last year. “I feel connected to the community now. I run into people I know – at the grocery store, on the street. Even though I live in a big city, now there’s a small community where I belong.”
The 2026 Makers Festival (October 10) is looking for volunteers to help with a variety of tasks. You can choose to help in the Kids Zone, sell merchandise, help with the stage setup, sell beer, assist the sound technicians, and of course, help clean up at the end of the day or the next. Go to signup.com/go/xuUqrKS (more information is given below).
In addition to festivals, many other volunteer opportunities need workers. For example, The Porch Press is produced totally by volunteers. Friends of the East Atlanta Library are volunteers. The story of the Splinter Group’s Trinity Project is an illustration of how volunteers can have great impact.
The Splinter Group is a volunteer-based group that specializes in community or personal woodworking projects. It was at a previous Makers Festival that the connection was made. The Splinter Group volunteers staffed a booth, sharing their love of woodworking and teaching individuals how to make bird boxes.
One participant at the Makers Festival happened to be a member of Trinity United Methodist Church, a church which was being redeveloped, a church also filled with hand-carved wooden pews and fine woodwork from the late 19th Century. The connection led to a much bigger project for the Splinter Group.
Of the 30 active Splinter Group members, about 20 volunteers participated in the Trinity Project. Under the leadership of volunteer Bill VerSteeg, they “built a total of 40 benches from the pews salvaged from Trinity Church. 20 of the benches are destined to be reused in the new senior housing project on part of the church site. The rest of the benches went to parishioners and Splinters and were auctioned off to support the outreach programs run by the church,” VerSteeg said.
“When I saw the quality of the wood in the pews, the church, the choir loft, the fellowship hall, I was blown away,” Ken Boff, the founder of the Splinter Group, said. They also salvaged “several hundred board feet of walnut and ash for use in future Splinter projects.” VerSteeg noted, “The wood is beautiful tight-grained old growth lumber. Some of the pews are rumored to have been saved from fiery destruction from Sherman’s March to the Sea.”
It was “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, we worked with a sense of privilege and honor,” Boff said.
“It took us awhile to fine tune the process [of turning long benches into loveseats].” VerSteeg said. “The resultant benches are a mix of the old technology (handmade dados, carved rosettes, square nails and beautiful patina) and new work (modern techniques, finish screws and joinery),” he added.
“It was a great partnership of community involvement with a wonderful result. It helped us save much of the historic wood,” said church member Mary Maynard.
“It’s been a lot of hard work, but wood-working just is,” Boff explained. He noted that many of the volunteers were not experienced woodworkers, but through VerSteeg’s organization, each one had a specific task to do to contribute to the whole.
That’s what it will be for the Ormewood Park Makers Festival on October 10, another effort driven by community volunteers. The volunteer website is organized so you can select your preferred date(s), time(s), and role(s). Please go to signup.com/go/xuUqrKS to sign up.
Perhaps the bottom line for Boff and the Splinter Group was the “certain bonding” that occurs “when you work with a group of people, volunteers.” If you’re interested in participating in the Splinter Group, feel free to contact Ken Boff at ken.boff@gmail.com.
