While most snowbirds spend their winters on St. John enjoying the sun, Kent and Paula Savel are busy helping visitors discover the island they love so much. They’re volunteers for both V.I. National Park and the Friends of the Library.
They spend so much time volunteering that at the Friends of the Park meeting Sunday, the were honored as volunteers of the year for their extensive efforts. In 2003, they received the volunteer of the year award from the Friends group.
Each week, they spend many hours at various park facilities.
"I like to have the connection. I get to meet so many people and it makes me feel good," Paula Savel, 64, said.
Kent Savel, 72, said volunteering helps keep him young, both mentally and physically.
"I’m not ready to be put out to pasture," he said.
And Paula Savel pointed out that, unlike other snowbirds, they don’t want to go the beach every single day.
Their volunteer activities on both St. John and at their other home in Marston Mills, Mass. would tire many people.
Their St. John volunteer week starts on Tuesdays when Paula Savel works at the Friends of the Park store in Mongoose Junction. Kent Savel leads the park’s Reef Bay hike, a situation that developed because the park was shorthanded. It’s now a regular weekly event because the demand for the popular Reef Bay hike is so high. And if his wife isn’t needed at the Friends store, she comes along on the hike to bring up the rear, answer questions and help keep tabs on the three dozen people that take the hike.
Wednesdays finds them both at Annaberg Plantation, where they serve as docents. The two started the program back in 2002, and are on hand to answer questions and show visitors through the ruins.
"The number-one question I get asked is will you take my picture," Paula Savel said, laughing.
On Thursdays Paula Savel works the front desk at the park’s Visitors Center in Cruz Bay. She answers questions and signs up people for the Reef Bay hike.
"Just whatever is needed," she said.
Kent Savel doesn’t regularly volunteer that day, but he often pitches in to work on trail crews.
And as members of the Friends of Elaine I. Sprauve Library, the two helped to move the library’s contents from a container to the library after recent renovations were complete.
The two got their start volunteering when the both worked at the Cinnamon Bay archeological dig. One thing led to another, stints at the Trunk Bay kiosk followed, and now they’re big time volunteers.
On Cape Cod, where they live the rest of the year, they volunteer at the Cape Cod Canal Visitors Center, operated by the Army Corps of Engineers.
The couple first started coming to St. John back in the late 1980s, long before they retired from ownership of Cape Cod Stencil Co., a company they started to make stenciled giftware. They bought a Lavender Hill condo before building their house.
Paula Savel, a native of Olyphant, Penn. and her Boston-born husband, met while both were college students in Boston. Kent Savel graduated from Brown University and his wife spent time at Glasgow University in Scotland before graduating from Boston University.
They have no plans to become full-time St. John residents, preferring to trade harsh New England winters for St. John’s tropical weather but also enjoying New England’s beauty. And they’re tied to the northeast because their son, Daniel, his wife Theresa and their grandson, Hyim, 9, live there.
They also like to travel. With all 50 states and all the Canadian provinces except the Northwest Territory on their resume, the two have no plans to give up trekking about the country in their 18-foot camper. They’ve been to 41 national parks and numerous national monuments and historic sites.
"This interest is all because of the national park here," Paul Savel said.
