Jerry Cotner Talks About Volunteering with Saline Main Street, and the First Annual Golf Outing
I’ve been involved in Saline Main Street since it started in 2012, mostly as a volunteer helping set up and tear down for Salty Summer Sounds. Now I’m on the Board, and I have been since December of 2022. Actually, I first heard about Saline Main Street because of the summer concert series. We came up with my daughter, Caroline, it was at the very beginning of Saline Main Street as an organization. I just asked how I could get involved as a volunteer.
I wanted to help out in my community. I was involved with the Saline Masons at the time and wanted to get out so people knew that the Masons were still around. I just care about my community. I just want to help out as much as I can and give back a little bit. For me, it’s important to give back because I want to be a positive influence. It’s like if you throw a pebble in a pond and make it ripple out. If you send good vibes out you can get good vibes back.
I grew up near Saline, in Belleville, but I always came out here with my family. It was nice to be away from the big city feel, but close enough to be able to get to Ann Arbor or Detroit easily. And not to be involved in the whole urban sprawl. It’s still kind of country out here in Saline. So I just like the location. Especially being so close to US-23 and I-94. It’s close, but still far enough away from the big city. And overall, the people here are just such good people. I like that everybody’s pretty close knit. It’s a nice hometown feel. Everybody seems to care about the town, which is nice knowing that other people care.
I’m a truck driver, and it’s a pretty solitary job, but I like meeting people. So when I volunteer I get to be around people. I’m a people person at heart. I used to work in restaurants all the time, and volunteering gives me the opportunity to be in that service role again, and also just meet people and get to know them on a personal level. It’s great.
Now that I’m on the Board, it’s nice to be involved in the decision making process. I like the people that are on the board, and it’s nice to be involved and be able to make some decisions that will help our community in the long term.
The most challenging thing for me is dealing with the politics of everything. I’m not a big politics guy. I don’t want to have to worry about stepping through all the hoops you have to go through sometimes when dealing with other entities around the city. I’m more of an action guy.
I think I like Salty Summer Sounds events the best, just because it’s an evening event that brings people downtown with different music to listen to. It’s just a nice, chill night. A lot of people will say Oktoberfest, Oktoberfest is just crazy. I like the Salty Summer Sounds because it’s summertime, lots of families come down, you can see a lot of kids and people just getting together and enjoying the music. It’s a fun time.
I recently became part of the Fundraising team and I’ve done golf outings before with the Saline Masons, and we made some money. I knew that Saline Main Street had a budget deficit, and I figured a golf outing wasn’t a difficult event to plan - it doesn’t take a lot of effort or a whole lot of volunteer staff, and we can still make some good money doing it. So that’s why I thought we should do a golf outing. I like the challenge of golf, it’s a very hard game. It’s also nice because, you know, you’re playing golf, but you’re also in nature. You’re on a golf course, not a court, not a baseball field. You’re actually out in the trees. I like the nature part of golf, I like getting out there. But for our golf outing, I just want people to come out and support us, it’s going to be a good time. It’s going to be fun. It’s our first one. We’re trying to make money to support the Salty Summer Sounds to pay for the musicians that come out, so we’re trying to make about $10,000, but yeah, it’s just golf. Golf’s a challenging game, it’s a fun game and when you get three other friends to go around the golf course with you, it’s a good time.
I have some friends that suggested Lake Forest Golf Course. They said that it was a nice place to have our outing because they have the whole event center already set up. You’re not doing the event by yourself. I also think it’s one of the nicer golf courses in the area, and it’s easy for golfers to get to if you’re coming in from out of town.
