Rock & Rails Volunteer of the Week: Merrick Blondeau

Sunset Middle School seventh-grader Merrick Blondeau is the Rock & Rails Volunteer of the Week.

Like his fellow gargoyles, Blondeau’s reasons for volunteering at Niwot’s weekly concert series are both altruistic and self-interested.

“Jill [Whitener], the person who runs the gargoyles, usually has a hard time getting Gargoyles, so I do it for that,” he said, before adding. “There’s also free food.”

Now in his third year, the Sunset seventh-grader is among the most veteran gargoyles. He enjoys riding on the back of a truck to pick up cones after the concerts, but not so much sitting on top of a waste bin in the late afternoon sun. He also gets frustrated by concert-goers who need repeat reminders about what goes where.

“I tell them that a cup goes in the compost, but they come back multiple times trying to put them in the recycling,” he said. “People keep bugging you saying a cup goes in one place when it doesn’t.”

When he’s not helping keep Whistle Stop Park clean, Blondeau enjoys camping with his Boy Scout troop and enjoying concerts at Rock & Rails without having to remind anyone what is compost and what is recycling.