Bill Gyves of Mineola is one of the many volunteers working to build the oyster dredge Ida May in Building J on the Oyster Bay Western Waterfront. A retired Verizon outside service technician, he enjoys both working with his hands and volunteering.
Gyves was volunteering with Habitat for Humanity in Queens and Nassau counties for a while but he had to leave when his wife Kathleen asked him to promise he wouldn’t go up on roofs.
Gyves and his wife have three children.
“They are wonderful kids,” he said. Christine, Andy and Jennifer all attend Kellenberg Memorial High School in Uniondale. “They all love it,” added the dad, who enjoys reading “Around Town With Lou” in the Mineola American.
Currently, Gyves also volunteers with Rebuilding Together, making ramps for wheelchair access for vets at no cost. He learned about the Ida May Project from the office of Nassau County Volunteer Services. “They handed me a big folder with a lot of jobs. There were a lot of mentoring positions in schools and working at hospitals, but the Ida May Project stuck out since I’ve worked with tools at Habitat for Humanity,” he said.
Gyves added, “I told Bill Shepherd, ‘I’ve never done this before.’ Bill said, ‘We’ll teach you.’ I’ve been doing it for two years.”
There are about three more years before the ship is finished. The men on the project are in it for the long haul. The prize ahead is that the Ida May is being built to educate children and adults about the marine environment in the daytime, and to have dinner sails on the Long Island Sound.
Gyves is looking forward to the next project of helping people build 16-foot skiffs along with the other volunteers and the shipwrights who are teachers for the group working in Building J. “We’ll see if there is a market for them,” added Gyves.
The official keel laying took place on Dec. 9, 2011. Currently, they are seeking donations for a New York State Parks Department HAS matching grant of $173,451. Each volunteer’s hour of work is valued at $26.45, but has to be balanced with “cash.”
The crew works on Tuesdays and Thursdays from about 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., and sometimes they go on to 6 or 7 p.m.
Donations can be made online at idamayproject.com or by check made out to The Christeen Corporation [the lead agency] and mailed to P.O. Box 386 Oyster Bay, NY 11771. For more information about volunteering please call 305-9204. To see the work as it progresses, visit Building J on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9 to 2 p.m. and sometimes later. Visitors are welcome.
