Brown Trout Festival in Desperate Need of Volunteers

Tents started going up on Tuesday at the Alpena Marina but organizers are worried.

As of now, there aren’t enough volunteers to make sure this year’s Brown Trout Festival runs smoothly. President of the Brown Trout Festival Peggy Donakowski said there are plenty of spots available. “There’s stuff for a two hour shift, there’s stuff for a three hour shift,” she said. “Can you do a day? It’s not that difficult. Some positions you can sit in a chair, but we need more help to run these.”

The lack of volunteers is causing organizers to rethink future festivals. One option on the table is making it solely a fishing tournament, but even then, help is still needed. “If we just make it fishing, we still need volunteers to run the fishing, granted not as many, but we still need volunteers and Brad, our fishing tournament director can’t do it alone,” said Donakowski. “We’ll have community support, that’s great, but the sponsors are going to ask what’s going on? Who am I supporting?”

Organizers will meet next month to talk about what kind of changes they might have to make for future Brown Trout Festivals. “Next month we will seriously have the conversation, August and September, can Brown Trout go on? Can it go forward? Why plan all this if we don’t have enough to run it,” Donakowski said.

Anyone looking to volunteer is encouraged to contact Peggy Donakowski at 989-464-5440.