There’s something about a group of volunteers who have worked together time and time again that makes an event even more joyful to watch, and Saturday’s Jeffersonville Duck Race was a chance to watch one of these well-oiled machines in action.

For those who haven’t had the pleasure of gathering along the Schadt Memorial Bridge in Jeffersonville on a fall afternoon, I promise no ducks are hurt in this bit of family-friendly fun. 

Volunteers sell off (temporary) rights to numbered plastic ducks right up until race time, when even more volunteers step into the often cold water of the Callicoon Creek to release hundreds and hundreds of the colorful fowl. 

Standing at the other end are — you guessed it — more volunteers, waiting with nets, bags, buckets, and their hands to grab the speediest ducks and the slowest duck, too, in order to award monetary prizes to those who laid down their bets on these plastic toys. 

If you’ve ever tried to fish a dozen or so of a small child’s tub toys from the bathtub while water swirls down the drain, you know water plus small slippery items can make it tough. Now imagine trying to do the same but with hundreds of toys and with a “tub” that’s hundreds of times bigger than anything in your bathroom. 

Add in rocks covered in creek slime, the twists and turns of the creek bed where ducks can get caught up, and of course water that may move at lighting speed or not at all. 

But after years of dropping ducks into the water at one end, working with young volunteers to “herd” the ducks to the finish line, and collecting it all at the other end, their system is down pat. They make it look like they’re fishing just a few rubber toys from a rather large bathtub. 

Many of the events that entertain us and delight us throughout the county are run by groups of volunteers just like those in Jeff who bring us the duck race year after year, from parades to fairs to festivals. They’re unpaid. They’re using their own time and often chipping in their own money. 

And yet they make it all look so easy so we can sit back and enjoy the ride ... or the race.