Volunteers

Inspiring involvement in conservation efforts close to home

Anita O’Connor named Ducks Unlimited Canada’s Prince Edward Island Volunteer of the Year

By Keagan Perlette April 20, 2026

Anita O’Connor, Prince Edward Island Volunteer of the Year

For Anita O’Connor, volunteering with Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC) is a family affair.

“My husband David has been a volunteer for almost 20 years and I’ve been helping out with the annual dinners for about 11 years,” she says. “Our two daughters have been volunteering for seven years. It wasn’t a hard sell for them, our oldest started doing tickets for the gun draw and her younger sister started in on it too. They love it!”

O’Connor was asked to jump in as a volunteer when she attended a dinner that was shorthanded. The rest is history.

Stepping up to the plate

For over a decade, O’Connor has been a fixture of the Montague Chapter volunteer committee. She’s helped organize successful annual fundraising dinners for her local community in addition to regularly travelling to other events throughout Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia to play a supporting role.

“We get great support from the community and local businesses for our dinners,” O’Connor says. “We have an excellent team of volunteers and a few of us have become great friends. We’ll travel around to other Ducks dinners in our region to lend a hand.”

Connected to nature at home and beyond

Being involved with DUC is an extension of the passion for nature that’s part of the fabric of O’Connor’s family life.

“We do snowshoeing, we love walking trails and we do some biking in the summer. Every year, the four of us will go somewhere on the trip where there’s water or wildlife,” she says.

Spending quality time outdoors is also an important aspect of her daily routine. “I’m outside a lot. I grow a big vegetable garden every year and it’s great to hear the geese flying overhead when I’m working out there.”

O’Connor is active in her local community outside of DUC, serving as president of the Lower Montague Women’s Institute and previously as a member of the board of directors for the Harvey and Dot Moore Waterfowl Sanctuary Inc., a small group of locals who came together to restore walking trails, bridges, the gazebo and memorial shelter on the sanctuary’s grounds.

“I spent a lot of time walking those trails to do repairs and maintenance,” O’Connor says. “There’s a fish ladder maintained by Ducks that connects two ponds out there as well. The area is absolutely beautiful.”

Seeing how DUC has made a positive impact on the ecosystems in her community — and enriched her own enjoyment of the outdoors — is what inspires O’Connor to keep volunteering.

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Everywhere you look, you can see the difference Ducks Unlimited makes.

Anita O’Connor

“There’s a Ducks-supported wetland on my brother’s property and that’s shown me what great work the organization is responsible for. The wetland has an annual hatch of ducks and geese and that’s been incredible.”

Staying connected to conservation

After retiring in 2022, O’Connor chose to dedicate more of her time to supporting DUC and the experience has been very rewarding.

“I enjoy every aspect of being involved with DUC. I’m proud of every dinner we have and I’m proud of the work that we do,” she says. “Our dinners are a success because of the great volunteers, tremendous generosity from our local businesses and support from the community.”

Volunteering with DUC is O’Connor’s way of giving back to nature, preserving the ecosystems she and her family love to spend time exploring together.

“DUC is a great organization. It’s wonderful to have people looking after our fish, our wildlife, our groundwater — everything that’s essential to our ecosystem,” she says. “Whatever Ducks Unlimited needs, I’ll step up to the plate.”

There are approximately 49 Ducks Unlimited Canada volunteers in Prince Edward Island and 2,810 across Canada. Ducks Unlimited Canada is proud to recognize each of them — including outstanding leaders like Anita O’Connor — as volunteer champions and conservationists who help ignite volunteerism and serve with generosity, passion and dedication.

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