Volunteer Voices - Beth Manring

Beth Manring at the Apollo Beach Visitor’s Center - Photo credit Lisa D. Mickey

Meet Canaveral National Seashore Volunteer Beth Manring

Beth Manring lived and worked in Columbus, Ohio before moving to Florida to retire and volunteer at Canaveral National Seashore. Get to know Beth and learn about her duties as a park volunteer.

As a volunteer at Canaveral National Seashore, do you mostly work in the visitor center?

I work in the Apollo Beach Visitor’s Center once a week and I also help with the turtle watches and community outreach programs, such as Turtle Day in Ponce Inlet and Indigenous People's Day. If we have education groups coming in from schools or home schools, I will help with that. One year, I helped paint Canaveral’s float for the New Smyrna Beach Christmas Parade. I pretty much do whatever needs to be done.

How many years have you volunteered at Canaveral National Seashore?

I believe it’s seven years.

And why do you volunteer at Canaveral?

Well, my career involved me working in an enclosed environment and I just decided that when I volunteered in my retirement, it was going to be doing something outside. I was not going to be sitting at a desk. Then we found New Smyrna Beach and bought a place on South Atlantic Avenue a couple miles from the park. That was our dream to live close to a national park and be able to get outdoors. We discovered New Smyrna by accident on a road trip and said, “Wow, this could be it.” We had looked for about a year for the right place to retire and we found it!

What did you do in your career?

I worked in a hospital setting for inpatient behavioral health. I did that for several years.

What do you enjoy most about working at Canaveral National Seashore?

Just meeting people. I like to be behind the scenes and I enjoy representing our park. I think we have a little jewel here. It's small and unlike some other larger national parks, not a lot of people know about it. I really love the services that we offer for kids in this park.

Why do you like to volunteer?

Volunteering means giving back. I think that's important for the community. And, it gets me out of the house, too.

Have you had a highlight here at Canaveral National Seashore that stands out as a volunteer?

Yes, it was during a Turtle Watch event. We were watching a loggerhead nest, which is kind of our focus, and then when we were walking back, we saw a turtle nest hatching. I had never seen both nesting and hatching on the same night. Hatching is very unpredictable, so to be able to see that happen and to be out there on the beach when it was happening was pretty spectacular. The Turtle Watch participants were pretty amazed, too. They got a lot of bang for their buck that night! That has been one of the highlights for me. I just love it here.