Dear friends,
We’ve closed our offices in Port Hadlock and Port Angeles to shelter at home and will be working remotely during this time. Our top priority is the health of our community, as well as our staff, and to that end we have postponed all April events for the time being as well. We are still available by phone, email, and postal mail and look forward to staying in touch during this period, please don’t hesitate to reach out!
Prior to the ‘Stay Home Stay Healthy’ order, we had to get creative with accomplishing field work without volunteers, students, and the WCC field crew. Our education staff, Hannah and Rian, along with our Program Assistant, Nate, worked in our Nursery for a few days to pot more than 1,000 trees and shrubs that were for Real Learning, Real Work student plantings. With field trips on hold, we needed to move our bare root plants to potted stock so they can be used at a later date. They also planted shrubs and willow stakes at Jefferson Land Trust’s Snow Creek Uncas Preserve to reforest land that had been clear cut. Our new Development Manager, Libby, even joined in on the field work and helped Hannah and Nate install protective tubes around plantings at Discovery Bay. We miss working with volunteers, students, and the WCC Crew, but remain dedicated to our mission to restore salmon habitat!
We hope you’re all able to take care during these challenging times, get some fresh air and enjoy the blossoming spring. We can’t wait to get back out in the field with you all!
Until then, we've created a fun "Stay Home, Stay Healthy' activity! Check out our
Salmon Bingo card
.
With gratitude and until soon,
The NOSC team
|
|
Thank you for planting with us!
|
|
|
|
7 events
114 volunteers
483 volunteer hours
8,840 plants in the ground!
5 WCC Crew members
We feel so lucky to have YOU as a volunteer and are inspired by your continuous commitment to habitat restoration!
|
|
Thank you to our partners:
Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe Natural Resources
Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe Natural Resources
North Olympic Land Trust
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
Washington Conservation Corps
We hope to see you all next season!
|
|
|
|
This school year marks the seventh year for the
Real Learning Real Work program. Through class and field lessons, students design and implement
their own salmon habitat restoration project.
In Early March,
Blue Heron Middle School designed their re-vegetation projects in Discovery Bay. Eighty-five students took on roles of restoration professionals and used teamwork to plant native trees and shrubs near Salmon Creek.
We are very excited to have
Sequim Middle School join the program this year, thanks to funding from the Benjamin N. Phillips Memorial Fund! The entire 7th grade completed their initial site visit on a parcel of land owned by the Jamestown S'Kllalam Tribe and decided to plant native trees and shrubs along the Dungeness River to improve salmon habitat on site.
Chimacum students completed their first site visit, and their next step is to design a prototype for their planting project!
|
|
All class and field lessons are currently on hold as we learn more about COVID, school closures, and new learning opportunities.
|
|
Catherine Marzyck,
Membership & Office Administrator
A Washington State native, Catherine grew up in Richland, in the southeastern desert region of the state. As a kid she could be found running through fields of sand and sagebrush with her siblings and neighborhood friends, swinging on old abandoned barn gates, splashing around in the Columbia River, catching frogs and snakes and dreaming of horses, and generally living the wonderful life of a free-range kid. She received her B.A. in Education and taught high school journalism, language arts, history and English as a Second Language in schools in Washington and Oregon, and in American schools in Ecuador, South America. After three years in South America, Catherine returned to graduate school at the School for International Training in Vermont and earned an MA in teaching Spanish and English as a Second Language. After completing her MA, she left the U.S. again and lived overseas for nine more years, serving in the Peace Corps in Nepal, then working as an English language teacher training fellow for the U.S. State Department in Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Macedonia, while also completing short-term contracts in Albania. Following her overseas assignments, Catherine returned to the U.S. where, for six years, she was the Coordinator of the Intensive English Program at Pierce College in Lakewood, WA, and then, for ten more years, the Associate Dean of Seattle Central Institute of English at Seattle Central College. She moved to Port Townsend in 2017 and joined NOSC in February 2020, where she is enjoying working with a fantastic team. In her spare time, Catherine loves to travel (she’s been to 42 countries!), create art, garden, walk the local beaches, and spend time with family and friends.
|
|
Libby Pratt,
Development Manager
Libby grew up in Sequim and Seattle, WA, and spent the majority of her youth exploring the Pacific Northwest with her family, which in turn instilled a deep love for the region and the natural environment. She received her BA in International Studies from Vassar College, which, somehow, helped her both during her time living abroad post-college and while building houses in Quilcene with her father for two years. She then received her MFA in Advanced Photographic Studies from Bard College in New York and worked for many years as an exhibiting and teaching artist. In addition to her artistic practice, Libby co-founded the project-based publishing entity, Secretary Press. Before moving back to the Olympic Peninsula, Libby was the director of one of New York City’s oldest nonprofit arts organizations, The Camera Club of New York, a member based organization that supports emerging photographers through exhibitions and an artist residency program. As the new Development Manager, she’s looking forward to connecting with both new and long term NOSC members and volunteers and helping to strengthen the greater NOSC community.
|
|
Monthly Spotlight - Jeannette & Jonathan
|
|
During the planting season, NOSC purchases native trees and shrubs from different nurseries. However, sometimes people generously donate young trees from their land to be planted at our events. It could be few Douglas fir or a single spruce but in the case of Jeannette and Jonathan, it was
hundreds
of Western red cedar!
Learn more from Jeannette and Jonathan below.
|
|
My partner Jonathan and I (Jeannette) are a thirty some year old couple and first time land owners here in Jefferson County. I’ve lived here for most of my life, but have left for periods of time here and there. Jonathan grew up in southwest Florida but migrated here about 10 years ago. We are passionate, tree loving, water protecting, nature adventurers. We do our best to live a simple, environmentally conscious lifestyle. Jonathan works as a journeyman carpenter and woodworker while I work mainly as a horticultural landscaper. We spend most of our time outdoors in work and in play. We hike, swim, forage, paddle and explore our beautiful bioregion as often as we can.
|
|
How did you hear about the Salmon Coalition?
|
|
Neither of us can pin point where or how we heard of NOSC other than being well networked within the community. Possibly thru the Land Trust, Local 20/20, other local events, acquaintances who have worked for NOSC or the WCC.
|
|
Why is habitat restoration important to you?
|
|
We see and value the intricately woven fabric of all life. We see the ocean suffering, Orca and salmon to name just a few. We see the importance of the health of our beautiful rich watershed. We see the destruction of our forests and the impeding climate crisis. We know that for every tree saved is another small drop in a very large bucket of hope that we may be able to help in some way.
|
|
You donated hundreds of trees. They were strong and healthy when they arrived to us. Can you talk a little more about how you source care for and maintain the plants you donate?
|
|
The trees we donated to you, were out of the ground for less than 48 hours. As we slowly gained access to parts of our property it was obvious that there were more small trees and seedlings than we knew we could deal with. We decided to take the time and effort to dig them up and find them new homes where they would be helpful. So, I started contacting local conservation districts and other restoration groups around the area. We were able to donate to several organizations, including NOSC. We dug them up and either heeled them into rich certified seed free soil we brought in or kept them plunged in buckets of fresh spring water until they were delivered to the organization. The Hood Canal Salmon Enhancement Group came out for a few hours and helped to dig up the few hundred they needed. We delivered 650 trees to Mason County Conservation district in support of the Orca Day planting event they put on in October. Totaling nearly 1200 trees donated.
|
|
What motivated you to donate to the Salmon Coalition?
|
|
We knew we wanted to donate to non-profits that were already doing watershed and salmon restoration to start. We also knew we wanted to donate locally, to first aid in the restoration work happening right here in Jefferson County. So, NOSC was clearly on the top of that list.
|
|
Anything else you would like to share with our readers?
|
|
I guess we would just say, GET INVOLVED! Volunteer, in any way you can. Get out in nature, get your hands dirty. Touch, smell, taste and learn about our amazing rich bioregion. Connect to the magic of this place. Honor its past and original caretakers. Remember the finely woven fabric that we all are a part of. Ask yourself what you can do in your daily life to be a steward of this land, its waters and all its creatures.
|
|
Thanks Jeannette and Jonathan!
|
|
Base funding for the RFEG program comes from a grant from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program, a portion of state commercial and recreational fishing license fees, and excess egg and carcass sales administered by the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife
.
|
|
Give Us Your Feedback
Questions or Comments? Let us know what you think!
outreach@nosc.org
360.379.8051
www.nosc.org
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
