Congratulations to Joe Schneller, Do Good Volunteer of April 2026!
"Joe has started a 100% volunteer trail project in the Keweenaw to make it easier to locate hikers, snowmobilers or ATV riders along the trail to reduce rescue response times when riders are broken down, lost or injured. Joe has dedicated many hours to walking the trails and staking signs with blue dots and location numbers that emergency services use to help locate lost or injured hikers, snowmobilers or ATV riders. There is one sign every half a mile in Keweenaw County. This project makes the trails safer for everyone.
In addition to this work, Joe is a dedicated volunteer EMT for Bootjack EMS. He is a vital member of the EMS department as he is proactive in inspections to ensure that our equipment is fully functioning and replenished between calls, obtaining grant funding for new equipment and attending to our agency's over 300 calls per year, anytime day or night. Joe helps in many different ways to keep our community members safe and healthy. Joe also holds the CPR Instructor certification for our agency to ensure that we are all up to date on certification. For these reasons, Joe deserves this award to recognize his selfless hours of volunteering for our community, which do not go unnoticed."
"Joe Schneller is dedicated to community safety. About 10-15 years ago Joe took it upon himself to head a disaster trailer. This trailer is stocked and ready to go in the event of a mass casualty. Joe goes weekly and inspects the trailer to check the supplies to ensure they are within date, batteries are charged and the trailer is ready in the event it is needed. The largest project Joe has headed is the snowmobile trail markers. Joe raised funds to purchase all the signs and stakes, and travels the trails with a GPS marking the trails. In years past, if a snowmobiler was injured, first responders had to search for these victims by phone pings or GPS locations, but it was found these locations could be way off from where the patients were. Joe has done all of Keweenaw County and is working on Houghton County; every mile down the trail will have a sign with a number that the 911 caller can give, and first responders have maps that will pinpoint them to where they need to go."
"Joe Schneller has both organized and raised thousands of dollars for the Emergency Trail Marker Project. After fundraising, he volunteered hundreds of hours to install the emergency marker signs along all the ATV and Snowmobile trails throughout the Keweenaw. With that phase of the project now complete, he is working on Houghton County Trails. Joe has done all of this with his own time and received very little recognition for it. The emergency sign project has already proved to save time in rescuing people on our ATV and Snowmobile trails and, in turn, helped save life and limb."