The Wenatchee Naturalist mission is to cultivate awareness, understanding, and stewardship of the Wenatchee River region by developing an active corps of well-informed community volunteers. This hardy group of 22 people in the 2020 class have been active over the last two years, volunteering in support of conservation all over our region. I’m pleased to share this first set of inspiring stories. Upon completion of 20 hours of volunteering, a Wenatchee Naturalist receives a service pin and a wildlife bandana. Folks who volunteer 50+ or 100+ hours within two years of course completion, are awarded additional pins.
Carrie Pruit (20+, 100+ volunteer hours) is in her 4th year as a board director, officer, and member of the executive committee for Cascade Community Markets (CCD). This non-profit promotes health, equity, and sustainability by creating vibrant markets in our valley that foster community connection and support local farmers and artisans.
Carrie says, “The experience has been incredibly rewarding.” CCM hosts May-October farmers markets on Saturday mornings in Leavenworth and Sunday mornings in Cashmere. CCD is very focused on supporting the local farmers and food produces to provide fresh and healthy foods to our community and help keep our soils safe and productive, and provides fresh food options for SNAP fund participants.
Shelly Forster (20+ volunteer hours) teaches 7th grade science at Icicle River Middle School. She enjoys sharing her knowledge from Wenatchee Naturalist during the Geology unit.
Students learn how local landforms developed, learn to read a local topographic map, and enjoy hiking field trips to Ancient Lake, Peshastin Pinnacles, Icicle Ridge, and Rattlesnake Hill. She also teaches a class focused on sustainability and the environment and is hoping to incorporate citizen science with her students this spring!
Ayla Medina Ulloa (20+ volunteer hours) applied their learning to their work at Chelan-Douglas Land Trust in the role as Community Inclusion Coordinator. Ayla offered place-based learning to students at CDLT’s Lower Sleepy Hollow Preserve, where they learned about salmon and grew their connectedness to the Wenatchee River watershed.
Ayla co-lead CDLT volunteer work parties to spread native grass seeds along newly built trail in the Wenatchee Foothills. They led a series of place-based hikes in the “Hike for Health” series that included a Jacobson Preserve night hike and a Saddle Rock winter solstice walk.
Lola Kemp (20+ volunteer hours) has volunteered to do stewardship for Chelan-Douglas Land Trust. She’s been a Wednesday Weed Warrior hand-pulling knapweeds, planted nursery-grown sagebrush seedings, and hand-watered native plants installed at a new trailhead. Lola has joined many mailing parties at the office over the two years.
Deanna Butcher (20+ volunteer hours) serves as the Youth Programs Coordinator at Wenatchee River Institute (WRI), helping support and organize many different youth programs. WRI has programs at every grade level in two most local elementary schools from Pre-K- 5th grade, teaching a variety of different themed naturalist programs.
Additionally, WRI teachers travel monthly to 8 different elementary school across NCW teaching every 4th and 5th classroom various Naturalist lessons. In the last 2023-2024 school year, WRI taught approximately 9,749 students from across 23 schools and at least 6 different counties. Deanna says, Thanks to the knowledge received from being a student in the Wenatchee Naturalist class, it has helped to further my impact and knowledge with teaching students and our other staff members.
Mary Austin (20+ & 100+ volunteer hours) volunteers with Wenatchee River Institute (WRI), often on snowshoe outings with all ages. During one snowshoe outing, she watched a bobcat hunting along Icicle River. She enjoyed helping visitors on snowshoes “see” the Sleeping Lady in the Icicle River skyline.
She’s delighted that a grade schooler doing nature study at WRI named a spider “Granny Mary” after her! Mary says, this is my joy and privilege. Mary visited her three grandchildren in Korea, and introduced nature journaling to them, each with their own notebook.
Kirk Beckendorf (20+ & 100+ volunteer hours) has volunteered with Conservation Northwest. In summer, he’s maintained trail cameras targeting wolves and wolverines. In winter, he’s been on tracking teams, supporting a wildlife crossing project along I-90 around Snoqualmie Pass.
Kirk is part of a team that snowshoes along pre-set transects, identifying and recording wildlife tracks and sign, and recording the animals’ interactions with the highway. As a community science volunteer, he contributes to Community Snow Observations and Mountain Rain or Snow. From the comfort of his home, he’s done volunteer grant writing to help a San Bushmen You-Tube language project. This photo of elephant scat taken during a trip to Africa triggered his interest in the language project.
Elizabeth Sollie (20+ volunteer hours) moved to the San Francisco Bay area, and applied her naturalist skills behind a camera lens. She is a pastor, and says, of course we talk about nature all the time at church. She has made it a practice to offer an Earth Day church service centered on the congregants’ and her own photographs of nature, especially birds.
Elizabeth’s been exploring birds in the variety of California habitats, from the coast to the Central Valley.
Karen Haire (20+ & 100+ volunteer hours) has been busy, supporting nature-related local conservation organizations, including:
- At the Wenatchee River Institute, helped children learn about freshwater macroinvertebrates and how their presence can be an indicator of a healthy watershed.
- Serves on board of the North Central Washington Audubon Society, helping at Salmon Festival and Youth on the Columbia doing “What’s That Bird” – a game that teaches kids how to use field marks and a field guide to identify local birds. In December, helped families make bird feeders out of pine cones and sunflower butter at the Wenatchee Museum.
- Through NCW Audubon Society, donated a pair of binoculars she took to Guatemala to give to an aspiring birder.
- As a member of the Leavenworth Spring Bird Fest steering committee, helped plan the event and assist with some of the field trips.
- Recently led a nature walk at Camp CamRec for a bilingual womens’ retreat.
Jane Lee (20+ volunteer hours) has devoted volunteer time to the Wenatchee Valley Chapter, Washington Native Plant Society and co-led wildflower walks at Leavenworth Ski Hill. She’s also helped with outdoor stewardship project at Wenatchee River Institute, and currently is volunteering as a docent at the Upper Valley Museum, serving all ages learn about local cultural and natural history.
Nancy Dunn (20+ & 100+ volunteer hours) Nancy volunteers as a board member of the Wenatchee Valley Chapter, Washington Native Plant Society. She has a big role as the chapter’s field trip coordinator. She recruits volunteer leaders, writes trip descriptions, organizes all logistics, and creates annual summaries.
Chris Clark (20+ volunteer hours) has focused on creating a native plant landscape around her new home in Leavenworth. She consulted with Derby Canyon Natives experts to select and install a variety of native flowering plants that support native pollinators, and provide habitat for a wide variety of wildlife. Out her window, she’s had some exciting sightings of wildlife that use her property as a migration corridor. She’s found tracks of elk, coyote, and possibly wolf, using her land.
Monica Valle (20+ volunteer hours) has applied her learning for youth education, including after-school programming at Wenatchee School District. She’s shared her learning as part of her staff position as a hike leader with !Team Naturaleza! serving all ages in the Wenatchee Valley.
As you can see, these volunteers are contributing in a myriad ways in support of conservation. I look foward to sharing more stories from class members in an upcoming “Part 2” blog post! Thanks for reading.
