Matt Cushing

Describe your volunteer activities at HCT:
Besides serving as a Trustee, I have done a number of things for HCT, which I will summarize:Brush and invasive plant removal, trail maintenance, fence installation, furniture moving, soil distribution, computer service and repair, telephone system repair, boundary search (first by myself and later with the increasingly professional help), mowing, road race help, old floor removal, shopping for supplies, bee hive construction, document organization and digitization, controlled burn assistance, and other miscellaneous duties.

How long have you volunteered?
I have volunteered for about five years.

What do you like most about it, memorable moments?
It has been a wonderful opportunity for me to feel really needed and to accomplish significant work for the extremely important goals of HCT.  The most fun I’ve had has been in boundary search, with the Eureka moment of finding a hidden concrete or stone bound in the underbrush.  At one point we were searching for a bound and my associate was actually standing on it!  A good laugh and a great moment.

What’s special about Harwich? 
Harwich is a great town, with wonderful people (in spite of the occasional vandal) and a magnificent ecological system.  I have been stimulated to go a bit into the history of the town and the more I read, the more fascinated I become.  What’s more, particularly doing boundary search, I have found hidden parts of the town, which would otherwise have gone unnoticed.  I am thinking particularly of the Mill Pond Conservation Area in East Harwich, discovering the interface with Nickerson’s sand and gravel pit, and a long, long trail extending all the way to Chatham and beyond.  Also Island Pond, a hidden gem in the middle of Harwich center.

What else do you like to do for fun or other activities or volunteering?
I read to the blind weekly the Cape Cod Times, via Audible Local Ledger in Mashpee.  I serve as chair of the Town of Harwich Trails Committee.