WSU Beach Watchers Rock The UnderTown!On January 19 the Beach Watchers held their annual volunteer meeting with a great evening at the UnderTown in Port Townsend. About 50 people celebrated the success of the 2010 season.
We honored longtime volunteers Bob & Lael Harris for their contributions to the program since 1995!! We also cheered for Mary Jo Nichols who has contributed 550 hours since she graduated in 2009. My O My! Nine volunteers received their 100-hours pins and we celebrated our contribution to the county with over 2,800 hour volunteering in 2010.
Here's some fun facts from 2010:
20...............New Beach Watchers graduated
50.............. Active volunteers
170............Total Water/Beach Watchers trained since the early 90's
2782..........Total [logged] hours in 2010
3672...........Direct Contacts in 2010
17,000........Indirect Contacts in 2010
$41,730.......Value Contributed to the Community in 2010
SO, What did we actually do? Here's a sample:
Beach Watchers contributed over 900 hours of direct service to non-profits and agencies such as the Port Townsend Marine Science Center, Jefferson County Conservation District, North Olympic Salmon Coalition, Jefferson Marine Resources Committee, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Jefferson Land Trust. We helped each of these organizations work toward achieving their missions by helping with education, stewardship and research.Some highlights this year include:
...helping plant 900,000 oysters on Jefferson County beaches that will be harvestable in just 4 years
...helping plant enough clam seed that 126,400 people will be able to dig their limit in the future
...developing a new educational tool to educate people about bottled water
...conducting microplastic monitoring (3rd season) and crab larvae monitoring (2nd season)
...initiating boat monitoring at Mystery Bay
...conducting recycling at the Canoe Journey (2nd Year)
...surveying streams and fish and insects and shellfish and more!
For more on these projects, check out this blog.
We are excited about new projects in 2011 including giving rain garden tours, introducing car wash kits to the community and hosting Water Courses. If any of this sounds interesting to you, the 2011 class starts March 1. Applications are being accepted now. Contact darcym@wsu.edu or call 360/379-5610 x230 for more information and visit: Jefferson County Beach Watchers.
We would like to thank WSU Extension, Jefferson County, the Jefferson County Marine Resources Committee and the Puget Sound Partnership for their support.
See you on the beach!
