St. Clair County Dive Team to hold annual fundraiser at Milkhouse Cafe Tuesday

St. Clair County Dive Team boat chiefs Tony Spina and Willliam Wuebben glided slowly on the St. Clair River Tuesday, a sonar computer screen guiding their movements. 

As they drove, the sonar painted a picture beneath the water in blue and yellow gradients. Logs and a seawall floated by on the screen. 

The sonar equipment was purchased through a grant through the Community Foundation of St. Clair County and funds raised through the dive team's annual fundraiser at the Milkhouse Cafe. 

The fundraiser will be held from 3 to 9 p.m. Tuesday at the ice cream shop, 4189 Keewhadin Road, Fort Gratiot. All the proceeds from the fundraiser will go towards the dive team. 

The St. Clair County Dive Team responds to reports of people in distress and search and rescue operations in local waterways. This could mean responding to a drowning, boating accident, missing person or vehicle in the water. 

Dive Team Auxiliary Chair Matt Graham said the dive team responded to 16 dive calls last year. That doesn't include community activities or searches that could take days or weeks at a time. 

The fundraiser raised close to $30,000 last year, Graham said, including a $10,000 donation from the Riley Gleason Foundation,  a local nonprofit created to honor the memory of a young man who drowned in the St. Clair River in 2019.

The dive team spent about $30,000 this past year on buoyancy compensating devices, personal flotation devices, the new and upgraded sonar equipment and to outfit a new vehicle, Graham said. 

The dive team will bring its boats, equipment and a dive tank so attendees can meet members of the dive team, learn more about what they do, how they can get involved and learn more about boater safety. 

"We want people to use this as a show and tell, as somewhere they can ask those questions," said Dive Team Auxiliary Chair Matt Graham.

The dive team used funds from the last fundraiser to purchase its new sonar equipment and outfit all its boats with the technology. Spina and Wuebben said the additions standardize the equipment the dive team uses so that any member of the team can use it, not just a select few. 

The new technology also provides a clearer, sharper image than the old technology, which is helpful when searching for a body or vehicle, they said. 

Roger Randall, another dive team chief, said sonar equipment was added to a boat that didn't have it before, making it easier for team members to search the water while other team members dive. 

Graham said the dive team also purchased new buoyancy compensating devices — which help divers control their depth in the water — for all its members to replace old, worn out equipment. 

What will this year's fundraiser be used for?

Graham said this year's fundraiser will be used for routine maintenance costs and to purchase new face masks and equipment used to communicate between team members on the boat and divers in the water. New team members must be outfitted with new equipment and the team needs spare equipment in case equipment fails while on a call. 

The funds will also be used to purchase supplies for boater safety classes, which the team hopes to offer the community.

It's classes and educational events such as these that the dive team hopes to do more with, Graham said. 

The dive team recently partnered with the Riley Gleason Foundation last month to hold line bag training and demonstrations for the general public at the St. Clair Marina. 

"This is where we want to take the dive team so that we are more than just a reactive team that's responding to a call but we can do some of these things ahead of time and hopefully steer off some of those calls," Graham said. 

To learn more, learn how to get involved or donate to the dive team, visit their Facebook page at diveteamauxiliary or their website at diveteamauxiliary.org/.

Contact Laura Fitzgerald at (810) 941-7072 or lfitzgeral@gannett.com.