Celebrating Volunteers- 2020 style - Wenatchee Naturalist

Annually, Wenatchee Naturalists gather to celebrate volunteerism and to honor individuals who completed between 20-100 hours of conservation volunteering. Join me here in this blog to commend members of the class of 2019 who found themselves in a life circumstance that allowed for volunteering, despite the limits of a pandemic.

Sept. 2019 Wenatchee Naturalist class field trip to the White River, with guest scientist, Heather Murphy (pictured at right in front)

Each person can choose the type of service that best fits their interests, abilities, and time constraints. There are four basic areas of service: Board Service and Stewardship Projects, Education/Interpretive, Community Science Projects, and Program Support. There is no time limit to earn a 20+ volunteer hour pin and class bandana. Within two years of course completion, people who volunteer 50+ and 100+ hours are recognized with additional pins. Keep reading, or check out the slideshow celebrating 2020 volunteerism, pandemic-style!

Wenatchee Naturalists earn a 20+ hour pin for volunteer service supporting conservation — wildlife scat or track bandanas

I now present the Wenatchee Naturalist volunteers for 2020!

Katja Rowell: 20+ Volunteer Hours

Katja, joined by her husband and 15-year old daughter, are community science family volunteers:

Conducted once/month Winter Raptor Survey for the Bend, OR Audubon during 2020/2021. Katja’s daughter is the best birder in the family.

Volunteered for the Audubon Christmas Bird Count, tallying bald eagles and a golden eagle and counting almost 900 identified birds

Collected big sagebrush seeds at Horse Lake Reserve

Katja’s family conducting a monthly winter raptor survey

Susan Miller: 20+ Teacher Volunteer Hours

During Jan. 15-17, 2020, Susan served a teacher & chaperone at Outdoor Winter STEM Camp at Lake Wenatchee YMCA Camp, for 5^th graders from Lincoln Elementary School in Wenatchee. Susan is an Intervention Specialist for Wenatchee School District.

Susan led snowshoe hikes, explored animal tracks & signs, helped build snow forts, & taught about the night sky, Greek myths, and constellations for groups of students.

She stayed with 6 students in a cabin, making sure every student had a fun adventure.

Stu Smith: 20+ & 100+ Volunteer Hours

Stu used his background in computerized mapping to help the Land Trust extend their in-house Geographic Information Systems (GIS) capability.

CDLT can use the public geospatial data that Stu gathered for them to help analyze, monitor, and map the Land Trust’s properties.

Stu designed this map for Chelan-Douglas Land Trust. He likes it because it’s colorful and shows the interesting terrain hidden beneath the vegetation canopy.

Caroline Woolmington: 20+ Volunteer Hours

During 2020-2021, Caroline and her daughter, Olive, explored below their feet, digging for bugs and planting seeds.

They observed and watered our garden throughout the spring, and enjoyed the fruits of their labors come summer.

They enjoyed many bird and owl walks, as well as attempted to identify tracks and scat along the trail

Carolyn applied her professional skills to select activities and books to read with Olive.

Wendy Sharp: 20+ & 100+ Volunteer Hours

Wendy volunteered as a community scientist, entering bird sightings into eBird.

As a bike commuter, Wendy picked up aluminum cans, tire weights, nuts and bolts and all manner of odd small metal pieces during 2020. In December, 2020, she took 287 lbs. of metal to the recycling facility in East Wenatchee, worth $19.37.

This saved .449 metric tons of CO2 emissions, when compared to the estimated emissions associated with the manufacturing of virgin aluminum or steel.

This is equivalent to avoiding the carbon emissions from:

1114 miles driven by an avg. passenger vehicle

50.4 gallons of gasoline consumed

495 pounds of coal burned

57263 charges of a smartphone

https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator

Bike commuter, Wendy Sharp, and a small part of her metal recycling items, picked up from Wenatchee’s roads.

Monica Maxwell: 20+ & 100+ Volunteer Hours

Monica Maxwell here with her adventure partners Ahsoka and Tarkin. Monica writes, *Naturalists know all things are connected so building partnerships with other like-minded people and organizations is essential, as well as uplifting and FUN.*

Monica is a volunteer board member, social media & website administrator for North Central Washington Audubon Society.

Like, follow, join, and share.

Facebook: North Central Washington Audubon Society

Instagram: @NCWAUDUBON

Web: https://ncwaudubon.org/

Monica says, *My goal is to inspire others with my curiosity, passion, and excitement by sharing educational and interesting facts about birds and conservation.*

Lloyd Thompson: 20+ & 100+ Volunteer Hours

During 2020, I had the chance to “teach” my two granddaughters for remote school and do lots of trips. We have explored, collected, and observed nature. Trips often were delayed by scat or dead animals along the way as we tried to identify the animal as well as its diet or how it died. Geology was included as we talked about how the area was formed while gathering and identifying various types of rocks which we found. We took the time to look, listen and think as we explored and had a blast just experiencing nature.

Lloyd is a community science volunteer, exploring new regional routes for the Bend, OR Audubon Winter Raptor Survey. He conducts monthly surveys, November-March. Lloyd shares, For hours, my oldest granddaughter and I drive and look for raptors… Our favorite route is through Baird Springs with only a few paved miles on the 65 mile route we often see only a few cars during our four hour plus trip.

Laura Reichlin: 20+ & 100+ Volunteer Hours

Laura serves as a volunteer board member for Wenatchee River Institute, supporting a wide variety of ways:

•Attends monthly Board meetings, serving as an officer

•Serves the Board as the Endowment Campaign Chair

•Created brochures, flyers, postcard mailers, and slideshows.

Laura writes, I have absolutely loved volunteering with and serving on the board for the Wenatchee River Institute. It has been so fulfilling to be able to use both my new skills AND my skills gained from 20+ years in the business world to help an organization and cause that is so valuable to our region and our planet. Getting to see and experience young people and families seeing and experiencing our natural world brings me so much joy, and I know we are sowing seeds for a lifetime of conservation and care. WRI is truly dedicated to their mission of connecting people, communities and the natural world, and it shows through their world-class programming, enthusiastic and dedicated educators, and their passionate board. I am truly honored to be a part of such an amazing organization and community!

Elisa Lopez: 20+ Teacher Volunteer Hours

Since completing the Wenatchee Naturalist course, Elisa has continued to bring natural science education to 4th grade classrooms in NCW. She explains, My favorite activity was called Bergmann’s Rule. Students learned about heat retention differences between large and small animals. We used cans to act as the animals, hot water as the body heat, felt as the fur, and students tracked heat loss over time outside in the playground during the winter.

Elisa says, Through Team Naturaleza, my team and I provided snowshoeing opportunities for the Hispanic/Latinx community where we focused on winter adaptation strategies of plants and animals. Also a lot of body sledding and fun!

Patrick Bodell: 20+ & 100+ Volunteer Hours

Patrick has served as a community Science Volunteer for Project FeederWatch, the Great Backyard Bird Count and the Audubon Christmas Bird Count.

As a NCW Audubon Society member through his store, has given out 1000+ bird posters, and 100/Phlox newsletters/month. Does his best to spread the word in-person and via social media to customers about local bird-related events and news as it happens.

Clare Morrison: 20+ Teacher Volunteer Hours

Jacobson StoryWalk 2020 — Clare Morrison

During 2020, Clare served as a bilingual librarian for North Central Regional libraries. Currently, she is serving as the librarian for the Peshastin Public library. Here are a few of her nature-engagement projects:

•Guided the selection of books for the CDLT StoryWalk at the Jacobson Preserve. This is a partnership project with NCW Libraries.

•Partnered with CDLT to create a window display of children’s books available at the library that connect families to nature.

•Served on the steering committee for Team Naturaleza.

CDLT Display Window — Jacobson StoryWalk Fall 2020

Heidi Hartnell: 20+ Teacher Volunteer Hours

Heidi is a Cashmere School District kindergarten teacher, and she: •Developed and taught a year-long curricula to connect hr students to their local outdoor environment in Cashmere.

A pre-COVID January 2020 kindergarten activity introducing native mammals

•Designed and taught a workshop for educators, introducing resources and methods to use to adjust curricula for outdoor education.

Heidi’s outdoor classroom for a teacher workshop

Dan Wilkerson: 20+ & 100+ Volunteer Hours

Dan served as a COVID at-home teacher for his 3 granddaughters, using his blueberry farm as an outdoor classroom and summer camp:

•He held a backyard bee-keeping workshop.

Bee-keeper, Dan Wilkerson, leading an outdoor workshop for family members

Dan designed art lessons based on dissecting owl pellets and sketching animals

•Held backyard birding-watch lessons and led the making of bird feeder Christmas ornaments

•Helped his daughter, Heidi, assemble grant-funded nature backpacks for children in her Kindergarten classroom.

Petra Swindler: 20+ Volunteer Hours

Dr. Petra Swidler is a Developmental Pediatrician at Confluence Health

Petra tells her own story: I work with children and their families that have challenges beyond compare in COVID 19 times. I tell them all the time to get out and enjoy nature’s classroom.

I tell my families in COVID 19 times: It is time to go back to the basics now. Enjoy the company of your loved ones and take them outside to see what beautiful surroundings they live in. Nature can be your best classroom. And then I give them examples on how to do it ….

•find the colors of the rainbow by looking at flowers;

•count the trees they pass;

•make an ABC out of natural materials;

• build a shelter out of twigs;

•dam a creek with rocks

I will end this celebratory post with a quote by Monica Maxwell, whom you’ve just met above:

Volunteering is a learning opportunity. It will expand, and awaken new skills and talents that can be invaluable in making our world a better place for all living things. Participate in as many volunteer opportunities as it takes to find your tribe, passion, niche, and purpose.

Thank you for reading, showing support for the Wenatchee Naturalist program. I can’t wait for us to gather in-person again! It is important to me to be able to share these local volunteer stories as inspiration and encouragement to all of us. We are challenged to find ways that uniquely fit our own talents, time, and passions, to make our watershed and our world a better place.