MEDORA - Each summer, the 90 or so residents of Medora make room for thousands of tourists and hundreds of seasonal workers to accommodate them.

The Theodore Roosevelt Medora Foundation brings in about 700 workers. More than half of them are unpaid and pass through town for just days.

Last year, 465 volunteers traded time and labor for free lodging, meals and access to foundation-operated attractions in North Dakota's tourism hub.

"Being a TRMFvolunteer is like being at seniors camp!" exclaims graffiti inside the Medora mini golf stand.

Most of the volunteers are senior citizens and work at Medora for about a week. They divide six to eight hours of daily work among several sites.

Responsibilities vary with the season's stages.

Early volunteers garden and paint in preparation for the crush of tourists. Later volunteers fan out over town for a variety of tasks including supervising mini golf and wiping tables at the Chuckwagon Buffet. The season's last volunteers take over the jobs of paid college students who return to school.

The work day is broken up enough that volunteers have free time to explore, said Jennifer Madej of Brookfield, Wis.

Madej and her mother, Jenette Dittman of Fargo, count a "terrifying" horse ride and a search for petrified wood among their memories at Medora. The pair have volunteered several times since the summer of 2003.

Two weeks ago was their first stay in the foundation's $1.4 million volunteers house, the year-old Spirit of Work Lodge. Rooms built for $10,000 or $25,000 each feature homemade quilts, private bathrooms and flat-screen televisions.

Donations already have paid off about $1 million of that, said Denis Montplaisir, volunteer coordinator and assistant director of development for the foundation.

In May, a donor who previously gave $250,000 to the lodge, pledged to donate one dollar for every two dollars the foundation raises for the building this year, said Annette Schilling, marketing and public relations director for the foundation.

"Hopefully we'll have a mortgage-burning party in September," Montplaisir said.

The foundation just began a separate effort to create a $1.5 million endowment to cover the lounge's operating costs in perpetuity.

The foundation has a conservative investment strategy, Montplaisir said, and wants to ensure sustainability for its volunteer program with endowment interest.

The endowment's first large donation came in May, Montplaisir said. It was $100,000.

Montplaisir estimates the yearly cost of the volunteer program to be $90,000 for administration, clerical costs, and volunteer room and board.

But the contributions volunteers make are incalculable, he said.

"No one can argue the value of saying 'I want to give a week of my life,'" Montplaisir said.

Despite little advertising, the program is now so popular, 800 people applied for about half as many spots for this summer.

Many hear about the program through word of mouth, including Madej and Dittman, who were not accepted last year.

Montplaisir said the foundation tries to create a mix of new and veteran volunteers each summer. It prioritizes anyone denied the previous year.

Madej and Dittman reapplied this year and likened the waiting period to hearing back from a university. When thick packages arrived from Medora, they knew without opening them they'd gotten in.

"We both really love Medora," Dittman said. "Now that we're coming here, we want to help more people understand what a wonderful place it is."

(Reach reporter Rachel Albin at 250-8253 or rachel.albin@;bismarcktribune.com.)