A Letter from Past Board President Linda Andrews
DEAR NATIVE PLANT SALVAGE FOUNDATION SUPPORTERS,
You are part of our habitat! You may have laced up your boots and gotten your hands dirty with us, taken our classes, or attended our open gardens and other fundraising events. Whether we’ve seen you a little or a lot in 2016, your contributions helped us enhance wildlife habitat and protect water quality. Thank you!
In the year ahead, we are excited to be working on the following projects:
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We are expanding our native plant propagation efforts to make more plants available for restoration, rain gardens, and sustainable landscaping projects. Volunteer and past Board President Andy Hopwood explains:
After our winter plant salvages, the rescued plants get potted up by our amazing volunteers. We enjoy camaraderie, purpose and often, delicious hot soup! The plant nursery committee is making new efforts to propagate plants from those saved native plants, to start key prairie species from divisions, cuttings and seeds, and to provide small-venue hand-on classes. All are welcome to join us. Our goal is to protect and conserve water resources and habitat from the South Sound Prairies to the shores of Puget Sound. We will be able to offer harder-to come-by plant species for learning landscapes and home gardens.
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We are digging into restoration work with community partner Capitol Land Trust, engaging the community in hands-on learning while revegetating several sites in the Black River Watershed. Our coordinator Erica Guttman brings her expertise in restoration ecology and education to this important work. This partnership and others we’ve enjoyed this year with Thurston Conservation District, Stream Team, WSU, and engineering geologist Wendy Gerstel help us expand our reach to numerous landowners for lasting on-the-ground change and new understanding of water resources and habitat protection by the roughly thousand people who participate in our events and classes throughout the region each year.
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We continue our commitment to mentoring young talent with our with our Washington Service Corps AmeriCorps members. Newly on-board AmeriCorps member Erika Whitney relates her impressions:
Working for Native Plant Salvage has been a whirlwind of learning and connecting with incredible people. Each time I work with our volunteers, I am in awe of these wonderful, knowledgeable, dynamic individuals devoting their time and energy to our programs for a huge collective benefit to our community.
We hope you will find a way to participate with us next year—there is so much going on!
Just as you’ve helped keep our physical ecosystem healthy, please help keep our organizational ecosystem healthy! Our Foundation supports the work that you see when you participate in a plant salvage or planting project, a workshop, a rain garden demonstration, and much more. This work is supported only through grants, contracts, and the generous donations you provide to meet our operational expenses each year. We get a lot done on a small budget—your $50.00 or $500.00 will go a long way! Whether you give today, on #Giving Tuesday (November 29th), or each month through a recurring donation, please know that we appreciate every dollar and will put it to work restoring habitat and protecting water quality. We have to have a habitat; thanks for being part of ours!
Linda Andrews
President, Native Plant Salvage Foundation