Volunteers clear beach steps, clean up mansion

The scraping of shovels on the sandy steps at Laketown Township Beach and the echoes of paint being scraped off the historic chapel at the Felt Estate – some of the sounds of volunteers at work during the annual Community Impact Day on Wednesday, May 14, 2025.

At the beach

“I come here quite often,” said Kathryn Ruiter of EagleEye Performance Vision of Zeeland as she heaved shovels of sand over the railing at the steps from the parking lot to the top of the dune at Laketown Township Beach, 6710 142^nd Ave. “I always wondered who shoveled these stairs.”

From a few steps up, her coworkers shouted: “Now we know!”

Neil Renaud, founder of EagleEye, has been leading his team on Community Impact Days for several years.

“We were looking for a way to volunteer and found this,” he said standing barefoot in the sand. “We have a good time every year and keep coming back.”

The Michigan West Coast Chamber of Commerce brings the volunteers together to help the community. The Laketown Township Parks and Recreation Commission along with Laketown Community Development Director Michelle Sall helped coordinate the 10 volunteers at the beach site where Rhonda Sanders of EagleEye plucked the invasive garlic mustard and put it into a garbage bag for disposal.

“We’re all kind of beachgoers at work,” she said.

The township recently removed beach stairs from the shoreline to the top of the dune, but the steps from the parking lot up the dune remain. They are often buried in the sands driven by strong winds.

At the Felt Estate

A few miles south of Laketown Township Beach, about 60 more volunteers trimmed back brush, pulled weeds, painted railings and light posts around the Felt Mansion, 6597 138^th Ave., and scraped paint from the chapel.

The chapel, which was formerly Gibson Church, was donated to and moved to the Felt Estate by Gibson Church in 2010 and was the site of a 2013 Catholic Mass service attended by Pope Leo XIV.  Pope Leo XIV attended high school on the grounds of the Felt Estate from 1969 to 1973 when it was known as St. Augustine Seminary. 

“I’ve been to weddings here and we want to keep it pretty if we’re going to enjoy it,” said Olivia Lanctot of Smith Haughey Rice & Roegge, a law firm with offices in Grand Rapids and Holland. She and Ali Chomiak cut tall grasses and branches between the mansion and Carriage House.

“I think it’s beautiful,” said Emily Gutierrez of Koops Automation Systems in Holland about the mansion as she pulled dead vines and leaves from the front of the mansion.

Felt Estate Executive Director Elizabeth McEwen welcomed the volunteers, sharing the history of the estate before joining them in the work around the property and century-old mansion.

Just down the hill, A. J. Chrisman of Great Lakes Furniture Supply in Holland painted a lamp post while more than a dozen blue-shirted volunteers scraped and sanded the Chapel at Shore Acres to prepare it for fresh paint.

About the mansion

Construction of the mansion began in 1925 by Dorr E. Felt, inventor of the Comptometer, the first machine that could do all four math functions — add, subtract, multiply and divide. The building was finished in 1928. Felt’s wife Agnes died that year. Dorr died a year-and-a-half later.

After his death, the estate became a seminary for the Augustinian order then a state prison and Michigan State Police post before the property was purchased by Laketown Township.

The mansion has been restored and is a top historical and educational site as well as a wedding and event destination.

For more about the Felt Estate, click here.