Residents of our watershed love their urban creek-and we felt that loud and clear at the 21st Watershed Wide Event. Gathering together to improve our natural areas is a beautiful act of solidarity, community building, and restoration of the creek and ourselves. Thank you for your part in making the day both fun and meaningful!
There are so many jobs putting on Watershed Wide. 50 behind the scenes volunteers helped organize and manage the event as interns doing outreach and donations acquisition, board member site leaders, errand runners preparing for the big day, buying, cleaning and organizing tools, taking photographs, and inviting groups, friends and family to come take part.
An extra shout out to our FABULOUS team of volunteer Creek Crew leaders who trained up in January to help lead events like this all year round. Thank you all so much for all of your work to make this a phenomenal day.
Together we were able to
-Plant 5,000 native trees and shrubs
-Remove 5 acres of invasive species
-Make new friends and connections with 410 volunteers
This is really important work to help shade the creek, supporting salmon by keeping water cold, reducing erosion, and providing healthy native habitat from the bottom of the food chain to the top.
See the pictures and feel free to brag and tag yourself on Facebook HERE.
Help us make our events better and better! Please fill out our volunteer survey HERE
Other ideas for how we can improve? Reach out anytime-shoot an email to courtney@jcwc.org or phone call at 503-652-7477 ext 101
A little history on the event:
This event began in 1999 after former Governor Kitzhaber created the Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watersheds to prevent the listing of coho salmon on the Endangered Species List. One of the biggest threats to coho and other salmonids in the Metro area–and throughout much of Oregon–is high stream temperature. 20 years later, our organization and many other public and non-profit agencies have made huge investments in reforesting streams, wetlands, and other natural areas to provide much-needed shade in Portland. As our climate continues to heat up, stream shading becomes ever more important in the effort to cool our streams so they can continue to be salmon-friendly. This is especially important because Johnson Creek is the only free-flowing tributary to the Willamette in the Portland area that still supports a salmon population.
Thanks to all of the volunteer groups who came out to participate:
| Moda Health |
| Modern Times Beer |
| Environmental Science Associates |
| Treecology |
| KLiK Concepts |
| Sound Native Plants |
| WSP Engineering Consultants |
| Rotary Club of Clackamas |
| City of Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services |
| Cub Scout Pack 6 |
| Clackamas County Women’s Correctional Facility |
| Volunteers of America |
| OTAK |
| Brown and Caldwell |
| NuStar Energy |
| Lewis and Clark Montessori School |
| PGE |
| Girl Scout Troop 10631 |
Thanks to our food donors for presenting all of our volunteers with delightful breakfast pastries and hot coffee:
Henry Higgins Boiled Bagels
Coava Coffee Roasters
Heavenly Donuts
Moonlight Coffee
First Cup Coffee House
Sacred Summit
Big Ben Donuts
Einstein Bros Bagels
Space Monkey Coffee
Starbucks
Sesame Donut
Spielman Bagels and Coffee Roasters
Little T Baker
Crema Bakery
Sweetpea Bakery
And a BIG THANKS to our amazing photographers and videographers Carol Caz Zyvatkauskas, Dakota Hufford, Sam Friedman, Josh Betts, Colin Durfee, Valentina Lumpkin, Alexis Barton, and a team from KLiK Concepts.
And BIG thanks again to our partners for making this event possible:
The Mintkeski Family Fund of the Oregon Community Foundation, Clackamas County’s Water Environment Services, Portland General Electric, East Multnomah Soil & Water Conservation District, Portland Parks & Recreation, City of Gresham, Crystal Springs Partnership, Friends of Tideman Johnson, Friends of Powell Butte, Freeway Land Company II, Overland Park Coalition, and the City of Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services.