Our goal is 100 new CBA members in 2021! We have 24 days left of our member challenge campaign and still have room for you! Our education program is run year-round, from our traditional school programs, such as Grasses in Classes, to summer camps and Shelves to Shores library lessons. We supply students with the materials for each hands-on experience with CBA. We aim to keep our future stewards exploring. To do this, we need you as a CBA member!

You can join at any amount and pay annually or monthly - Even a membership at the $25 "Oyster" level will fund a lesson for one of our 93 Grasses in Classes classrooms.

Our heartfelt appreciation goes to The Dugas Family Foundation, which chose CBA as a recipient of a three-year gift supporting the expansion of our K-12 education, living shorelines, and water quality programs. Over the next three years, CBA will focus on growing our capacity for impactful initiatives around our waterways. Thank you, Dugas Family Foundation, for your generosity!

Pedego 30A gifts 5% of every bike rental towards CBA's waterway initiatives. CBA is so proud to partner with Pedego 30A to care for our local waterways. Thank you, Pedego 30A, for your continued support.

If visiting 30A is on your to-do list this summer, why not rent an electric bike from Pedego 30A? With over 28 miles of beautiful sights and 13 Coastal Dune Lakes, Pedego electric bikes allow you the freedom to enjoy the beauty of our coastline at your leisure. Support our waterways and rent an electric bike from Pedego 30A!

While our Grasses in Classes year comes to an end, education initiatives at the Choctawhatchee Basin Alliance never stop! This summer, we are hosting our hands-on science program, From Shelves to Shores, at three local libraries.

Have you noticed dark splotches in the shallow areas of our bay? Those are seagrass beds that are an essential habitat for our estuarine critters. After completing Grasses In Classes at 17 schools, our Northwest Florida Environmental Stewards AmeriCorps members are taking a dip in the waters of conservation ecology. We are bringing members on the boat to assist in seagrass field surveys. We conduct multiple surveys such as overall coverage, stem growth and intensity, water quality, light attenuation, and stingray pit transects. Each AmeriCorps member has a unique background when they arrive here. We are committed to providing these stewards with fundamental skills to move forward in their career fields.

The All Hands on Deck initiative has taken a foothold in South Walton with the Emerald Coast Gator Club and 30A Trails planting native shrubs and grasses along the shoreline roadways of Alligator and Big Redfish Lakes. With construction on these overpasses completed, CBA arrived to give the lakes a little TLC. Our team planted several native species of flora that will not only stabilize the shoreline but beautify the area. Some wetland species planted in these areas were pickerelweed, pink and scarlet rose mallows, fire bush, and needle rush. These installments will bring bright colors to the sloping shorelines of our unique coastal dune lakes.

Thank you, Emerald Coast Gator Club and 30A Trails, for making the beautification of our waterways possible.

It's been a slow and steady race to finish the Hammock Point reefs located on the Eglin AFB reservation. Eglin called in CBA to mitigate the eroding shoreline of the bluff overlooking the bay. Windy spring weather and shallow waters often presented a challenge for our crew of CBA staff and AmeriCorps members.

We're giving a shout-out to the Morgan Marine captains who guide barge loads of limestone to our reef site. AmeriCorps and CBA staff are working hard on this project and have over 600 linear feet of reefs completed; that's 28 reefs! We are past the halfway point and are excited to see this project to completion. Not only will these reefs provide critical erosion control, but they will offer new habitat for many critters in our watershed.