November 2024
Month's Highlights
October was a busy month for our environmental education school program, with many visits to classrooms and field trips to parks and beaches. We also did a lot of outreach in our local communities, going to events such as Ciclovía in Salinas and Crumpton Elementary's trunk or treat. Get ready, this newsletter is full of pictures!
As the weather changes, and the winds turn cold, it's important to remember community. Celebrate this ever-changing world together. Love the rains when they come; they'll bring along with them the gorgeous greens of winter.
Upcoming Community Events
Everyone is welcome to our family-friendly FREE community events. We provide gloves, tools, and supplies. Sun protection, reusable water bottle, and closed-toe shoes are recommended.
We are currently in the process of planning upcoming community weekend events, keep checking our "Events Calendar" for updates or join us at DONS which runs year long!
EVERY TUESDAY | DONS (Docents of Native Species), greenhouse native plant volunteer group.
10:30AM-12:30 PM
Email Christina McKnew for more info.
SAT, NOV 16th, 2024 | Email Azalea Wiley at awiley@csumb.edu
Outdoor Equity and Restoration event!
10:00AM-1:00 PM
Location: Natividad Creek Park, Salinas
HSP Made a Difference on Make a Difference Day!
by HSP team
We had our second event of the semester with Make a Difference Day! This event was at Upper Carr Lake in Salinas. It was a restoration clean-up event, along with birdwatching. On this beautiful day, the 20+ volunteers and service learners helped pick up 232.9 pounds of trash. Birdwatching was encouraged for the last 30 minutes. The picture below shows a few volunteers sitting down near the lake and quietly watching for birds.
Volunteers sitting down near the lake and quietly watching for birds.
Fun Times at the Beach
By Nancy Vielmas, Education Programs Coordinator
This past month we’ve had a few field trips on the beach with our students. It’s been a fun day pulling ice plant, bird watching and journaling about the native dune plants. Students made some connections as they had just learned about invasive plants and the effects they have on ecosystems in their classrooms.
Enjoy these pictures of kids having fun at the beach.
Public Lands Day at Ft Ord National Monument
By Laura Lee, HSP Director
On Saturday, October 26, 2024 the BLM FOFM celebrated their 25th Public Lands Day with numerous service events, including seed collecting, broom bashing and installation of willow waddles. The restoration season is underway. Afterwards, the 60+ volunteers shared a great lunch provided by Friends of FONM.
Other highlights include: Unveiling of the new BLM uniform of blue shirts and grey pants!!! And for HSP and Laura Lee, a framed photo of lovely oak tree.
See how complementary the HSP green and the BLM blue are. You will surely see us out on the planting sites!
The Importance of Outreach
By Azalea Wiley, HSP Americorps VIP
We had a lot of outreach and tabling opportunities this October. Through these events, we remember the important of connection and community.
The first event we attended was Ciclovía in Salinas. This premise of this event is that many organizations set up booths with activities along a road and the community can walk, run, or bike through and do the activities. We had a pot stacking activity, with a goal to stack them as tall as your own head. Many kids, and even some adults, participated in the activity!
Our next event was the Monterey Bay Aquarium Climate Action Project Summit kickoff. This event was at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, for educators to connect with organizations with missions of climate action. Speaker, Rosanna Xia, a Pulitzer Prize finalist and reporter for the LA times, spoke about sea level rise on our California Coasts, and the climate anxiety that we are all feeling. Her book, California Against the Sea: Visions for Our Vanishing Coastline, brings voices often forgotten to the forefront in our climate crisis. As the summary on the publishing website states:
"From the beaches of the Mexican border up to the sheer-cliffed North Coast, the voices of Indigenous leaders, community activists, small-town mayors, urban engineers, and tenacious environmental scientists commingle. Together, they chronicle the challenges and urgency of forging a climate-wise future"
Her talk was inspirational, and much of what she talked about aligned with our mission at HSP. Climate action starts with our local communities!
We also set up a table at Crumpton Elementary's trunk or treat event. We passed out poppy seeds and brought our watershed model so that the students could play with and learn about the water cycle and how pollution spreads through water. It was a very fun event, and there were so many amazing costumes!
HEADS UP!!! 2024 MCGives!
HSP is proud to have been chosen to be part of the 2024 Monterey County Gives! donation campaign. This is HSP's most important fundraising event of the year and we depend on your gift between November 14-December 31, 2024.
Visit montereycountygives.com between November 14 through midnight December 31st to make your gift to help us meet our goal of $25,000!
If you are interested in giving now, please do contact HSP Director, Laura Lee Lienk, at llienk@csumb.edu for more details.
We will be asking for donations through email and our social media sites.
HSP is Grateful
HSP is truly grateful for community groups and foundations whose donations provide us significant support. In the past two months these supporters have included the Johnson Ohana Foundation, the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Monterey Peninsula, and the Big Sur International Marathon.
Their gifts support the HSP Volunteer Program, our AmeriCorps VIP, and our many propagation and outreach programs. Your monetary support, too, through MCGIVES! can continue to make the HSP Mission a reality by "bringing nature to people and people to nature through hands-on experiences restoring habitats and environmental education".