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 next set of stories features members of the class of 2019 who have jumped into community engagement with their class projects.
Patrick Bodell is the owner of Wenatchee’s Wild Birds Unlimited Store, and his class project is to establish a new urban bird walk program. The route is in Wenatchee’s densest neighborhood, between Methow and Lincoln Parks. Patrick’s goal is to engage a new audience with nature around them and to use eBird as a tool. He plans to partner with class member, Elisa Lopez, who is the staff lead for Team Naturaleza!, and to coordinate with the opening of the newly re-built Methow Kiwanis Park, a partnership between the Trust for Public Lands and the City of Wenatchee.
Elisa Lopez took what she learned about shrub-steppe ecology and developed a new natural history outing for local families. She planned and guided a November Team Naturaleza! “ family nature hike Up and Over Saddle Rock.” This four-mile hike served 17 people and 50% were new to the program. Despite the dreary weather with ground fog, Elisa’s crew were all smiling broadly in the summit photo.
Stuart Smith recently retired and relocated to Wenatchee, bringing along his passion for GIS mapping. For his class project, he created a StoryMap for the Jacobson Preserve, easily accessed from a smart phone. It is designed to integrate a map with photos to introduce a user to sights along the trail and is available on a smart phone or computer. Stuart has already started volunteering with Chelan-Douglas Land Trust by offering his technical advice to improve CDLT’s mapping with tools like the StoryMap.
Bob Doolittle presented his “big idea” to launch a Wenatchee Valley Volunteer information website hub as a new non-profit organization. It will feature a comprehensive online catalogue of local volunteer needs for a wide array of organizations. Bob has been busy getting the technical side up and running, thanks to his professional expertise as a computer programmer, and he’s been making the rounds to community organizations to pitch the concept and to recruit board members. Stay tuned!