Northern Sky's Tuesday Crew Wins Golden Heart Award

At the Door County Volunteer Golden Heart Awards Celebration on April 19 our Tuesday Crew won in the Arts & Culture category.

Northern Sky’s Tuesday Crew began in 2016 in the weeks leading up to our summer season in Peninsula State Park. Initially the crew would work weekly May through August. Now, 7 years later, the Tuesday Crew can be seen at both the park and our brand-new Gould Theater almost year-round.

“The Crew” is made up of folks who have a wide range of talents and tools at their disposal. And by tools, we’re not being figurative. Tuesday Crew volunteers can often be found lending a rake, a saw, a wood splitter, a leaf blower - the list goes on, and includes energy, sweat, and tireless good cheer. If it’s in a volunteer’s garage, we’ve probably borrowed it. This group of people, mostly retired, with backgrounds from many professions, bring an incredible work ethic and a huge cross section of knowledge and wisdom from business, industry, teaching, the arts, together with wide-ranging life experience and oodles of good old common sense.

The Tuesday Crew is led by our facilities manager, Rich Higdon, but they also work closely with our production manager, Lisa Schlenker, and managing director, Dave Maier. That said, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more self-motivated group of volunteers on the peninsula. Rich often comments that it is a challenge just to keep up with them.

On average 10-12 volunteers show up every week “in season,” May through October. During the off season it’s more like 4-6 people in any given week. The group meets for around 3 hours each Tuesday morning, spring through fall. Many in the group show up before our staff even arrives on site, in part to beat the heat of the day. For those of you doing the math, this means on average the Tuesday Crew has put in about 1,200 hours of time, talent and labor in support of Northern Sky annually over the past 7 years = 8,400 hours of impact on Northern Sky’s bottom line. With the value of volunteer time in WI now estimated at about $30 per hour, this equates to approx. $252,000 in value to Northern Sky Theater since The Crew’s inception. Astounding!

We aren’t quite sure what we would do without the passion, expertise, and unending enthusiasm of our Tuesday Crew. Although it is our performers who get all the applause, with this recognition of the Golden Heart Award, we honor The Tuesday Crew with the spotlight and a standing ovation!