Green Creek Wildlife Society has announced that Auriel VanDerLaar is the winner of the 2007 Volunteer of the Year Award. The award is presented to the Green Creek member who donates the most service hours on various projects.

VanDerLaar is the daughter of Jim and Jeanine VanDerLaar of Helena.

During 2007, she logged more than 200 volunteer hours assisting on numerous wildlife related projects including rail research at the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge; Bank Swallow research at several Sandusky County quarries; fish study at Creek Bend Farm, a Sandusky County Park District facility; and monarch tagging, in cooperation with the University of Kansas. She was a bluebird trail monitor and logged many hours in the field.

She has presented programs to the Ohio Young Birders, a state-wide organization of 150 youths interested in birding and the Ohio Bird Banders Association. She has written grants for several of Green Creek's research projects.

She has also applied for a Federal Bird Banding Permit and if successful, would be one of the few teenagers in the United States possessing such a permit.

VanDerLaar is a home-schooled senior and has decided to pursue a career in wildlife management. She has been accepted at Michigan Technological University, Colorado State University and The Ohio State University.