INVITATION
SUNDAY April 17th
11am-4pm
Plans for Earth Day 2010 HAPPENINGS:
Come to our Open-Non-House!
Plant trees, seed, plant plugs, install erosion control
mats and remove garbage on the banks of the Maumee when you have an hour or five
to spare, rally for clean water, support your local waterways...and have fun
doing it with live entertainment!
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Cleansing the riverbanks of garbage 11am - 4pm
- You won't be able to miss it meet us at the big tent!
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Soaring Hawk presentation with a short eared owl!
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Planting native riparian seed/trees/plugs and
blackberries this year
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Installing erosion control mats.
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River Education all around! Education material
provided...
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Hour-long horse tours on the hour
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Unsure who "The Earth Day Heroes" will be (like
every year) Please respond with your pledge to play at the event for a set
or 2!
..Over the years musical talent has included:
Dave P., Grateful Groove, Wil Brown from the Afrodiziacs, Beyond all Rational
Thought, Carol Dean and Les Lesser, The Wilderness, & Anthony Garr.
Cleaning up your dog's poop on a walk will also improve water quality, so don't
forget your plastic baggie when you grab Rover's leash! - Dogs are not
prohibited, but not encouraged at the event...
*Andy's Horse Tours and Rentals: horses will be available this year for $35/person/hour for
guided tours on the banks of the Maumee, the price INCLUDES horse poop-pick-up!
We don't want to contaminate your rivers!
* Time slots for the horses will fill up quickly, so don't
wait to reserve your family's horse! Call today (260) 417-2500 - Abby ~ Or call
Andy direct (260) 350-7613 or (260) 562-3432 Proceeds will go to Save Maumee erosion control
materials.
* A grand event in the works, so save the date to celebrate our Earth!
GOALS INCLUDE
1) Celebrate the cleansing
of the riverbanks
2) Seeding native riparian Mesic Prairie Plants, tree planting, erosion control mat installation
and blackberries!
3) Improve erosion and sedimentation through our plantings.
4) Rally the community’s awareness about our 3 River’s condition in Fort Wayne
and restore aesthetic and recreational value through reclamation and
restoration.
HOW TO PLANT SEEDS
1. Find a bare area where grass needs to grow…don’t walk on the other new life!
2. Stir up some dirt with your shoe or stick
3. Sprinkle sees in the raked up dirt
4. Cover the newly planted seeds with the other dirt you stirred up
5. Step-on the freshly planted seeds to hold them in the Earth!
6. On your way back from your walk, pick up all the garbage with the bag!
7. If you find something hazardous and feel uncomfortable touching it...Save
Maumee Representatives will be there to assist in removal! WE DO NOT WANT YOU
HURT!
On the corner of N. Anthony Blvd. and Niagara Dr.
We will meet here:
Don't just dream about clean rivers...Come out & help
rain
or shine....if not you....WHO?
In your yard Cottonwoods and Mulberry may be unwanted, but
these "trash" trees are beneficial to riverbanks.
We choose this area because it is where the trash has the
first chance to collect downstream of all the armoring (removal of trees/grasses
and replacing with rock and pavement) upstream. This is the first area the
trash has a chance to collect on the streambanks.
If you want to see what we did in 2009
CLICK HERE!
If you were in the pictures from 2008
CLICK HERE!
If you want to see pictures from 2007
CLICK HERE!
NEED DONATED FOR EARTH DAY ~
Updates from 2010 Earth Day
TOTAL
TRASH REMOVED FROM OUR WATERWAYS in April 2010:
8.5 TONS ~ The benthos community thanks you!
Sunday April 18th, 2010 we had 267 official count of
volunteers that worked so hard! EVERYONE who works for Save
Maumee Grassroots Organization and your rivers, do not receive any compensation
of any kind. 100% of donations go to the expensive restoration technique
materials.
YOU planted 3 acres
worth of native riparian DNR approved seed underneath 1,000 sq ft. of
erosion control mats and other
barren areas to reduce erosion/sedimentation.
TREE PLANTING RECORD
THIS YEAR! - 60 River Birch, 40
Burr Oak, 50 Red Oak, 20 Pin Oak, 20 Swamp Oak and over 1,000 Weeping Willow
Poles and Corkscrew Willow Poles! Total tree count for this one day: 1,090
TREES
This Earth Day brought the
total to just fewer than 2,000 trees planted on your waterways!
YOU planted over 300 native plant plugs (previously started
seedlings)! These retain deep tap roots that hold them in place when the area
floods. (after 5 years of growth) ALL these hearty plants are able to live
through drought or flood due to their deep tap roots and are ideal for our
riverbanks…it is even improving the areas plant diversity!
Our
luxury item was planting 60 Raspberry Bushes & 8 Blackberry bushes
UPDATE to plantings:
The trees, “poles” and plant plugs were under water for 1 week that began
4/27/10 …still waiting to see the water recede from the rain-storms on 5/21/10
and today is 5/30/10! -
Now it is September 13, 2010 and our plants did not fair as well as we hoped!
It was so dry this summer, lets just see how they come back in 2011!
Special
THANK YOU from Save Maumee to the following people who helped bring all
of us together this year! Our events are FREE but ALL donations go to projects
like this one! Give till it hurts – OUCH! The list is getting pretty long but
unity and gratitude are so important to share! THANK YOU!
…AND ALL OUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY WHO HELP EVERYDAY AS VOLUNTEERS - THANKS and if
we forgot to include you DOUBLE THANK YOU! The heart of grassroots belongs to
people who donate time or supplies or BOTH!
Interesting things we PULLED OUT or WORKER: Award Winners
Largest
Trash– REMOVED FULL SIZED of the following…water heater,
old steel manual plow, a car seat, 2 refrigerators, a furnace, a stove, 12
tires, 85 oz can of oil, 25ft. of a gas pipe, 15 ft. of unknown pipe, rugs and a
car trailerhitch.
It took Senatorial Candidate
(15th District) Jack Morris, Bryce Gustafson, Brian Foster, Wade,
Marissa Jones, Greg Morricle, Sandman, Josh Jackson, Rickey Fuller, Harold
Wallen, Peter Kauffman, Evan Hill and the guy in the blue shirt! The guys took
the scrap in for recycling the next day! SWEAT EQUITY!
Coolest Find
- Morrell Mushrooms were found – ssshhhh it’s a secret where they grow!
Most Contaminated
Trash– An 85 oz full can of oil found by local artist Rickey Fuller…along with
all the kitchen appliances!
Largest Unified Group
– Phi Theta Kappa – Honors Society from Purdue University
Funniest Trash –
A red high healed pair of shoes found by Brenden Sears (8) Kerian Ward (11) and
Elyssa Fuller (11)
Most potential to contain West Nile
– 12 tires
Most berry bushes
planted Winner: Bruce Allen planted
all the raspberry bushes and also represented the Maumee River (and northeast
Indiana) in Washington D.C. this year thanks to Healing-Our-Waters!
Got the most children
involved: Gary & Nicole Jeffery
Most Fauna Love
- Preston Arbuckle hung a Wrens’ Nest on the Maumee Riverbanks
- from Wild Birds Unlimited
Most Interesting
- Ashley’s family – brought us some old railroad lights (covers)? pulled out of
the Maumee and they were given to Ellen Ley for art creation!
Celia Garza got the names for
the thank you for all of our hard workers (FOR HOURS and HOURS) down on the
erosion control project and I never got them!!! BOO! THANK YOU HARD WORKERS!
Total Miles of northern
AND southern streambank cleansed –
1.5 miles - including “The Ravine” self-dug bike trail which is considered one
of the top 10 self-dug bike trails in the USA.
Most FUN: Andy’s Horse
Tours and Rentals – had 6 horses and a miniature pony to take you for rides on
the greenway! – NICE! Their volunteers also painted faces!
Most Educational
Soaring Hawk brought a Short Eared
Owl & Red Tailed Hawk and spoke about their habitat on the riverbanks –
What beautiful animals!
Most Home-Useful - Rain
Barrel Demonstration by Lyle McDermott to show us how to capture water and
release during drier periods…great idea for watering a raingarden, food garden,
or your flowers!
Jain Young – Herb Specialist took
volunteers on an “Edible Herb Walk” to show what you are
missing on your plate at home – native home grown food grown right here!
Grace Strahm -
demonstrated what a watershed IS and how YOU affect it with an enviroscape
demonstration.
Of course we needed something to keep ya’ll lively….
* Health Food Shoppe Snacks
* Coffee from Old Crown Coffee Roasters
* REUSABLE water bottles from ACRES Land Trust & U.S. Air Force
Updates from 2009 Earth Day
The mats the volunteers installed last year were a success,
but the real success is always measured in spring!
*Seed & tree planting from Earth Day: The grasses are definitely growing, yet
struggling without enough water. It has been a very dry growing season in 2009.
Your seeds you planted on the riverbanks on Earth Day would love you to come and
water them…looking dry but still growing slowly! The Paw Paw Trees were a
failure due to the dry season, yet the rest 400 or so trees: Persimmon, Oak,
Maple etc. are doing VERY WELL! Come see the progress, visit your riverbank!
In 2010 we will be using plants from the greenhouse
harvested from the Fox Island Seed Gathering - along with the usual Earth
Source/Heartland Restoration seeds and plant plugs!
Other Happenings for the year:
* In the works is an Upper-Maumee Watershed Management Plan that is beginning to
form! Save Maumee has been asking for a watershed plan to develop -THANK YOU! A
watershed coordinator is needed for Ohio/Indiana and city/county boundaries!
This may be the ideal position for me! If you want to see this plan take form
and provide your input, PLEASE check out the website if you would like to attend
a monthly meeting!
www.uppermaumeewatershed.com
*Currently, Top Notch Tree Service has donated space in their 10X30 greenhouse
to grow OUR riverbank plants! THANK YOU! Many Save Maumee Supporters have put
forth effort building the greenhouse, putting it together with 85% salvage and
recycled material! YEAHHH! We will be ready to begin to plant what we have
harvested from the Fox Island Seed Harvesting on Sept. 26th, 2009!
*Greenfest was very successful for the first annual event at the SouthWest
Conservation Club thanks to
Waynedale Green Alliance.
Fort Wayne Mayor, Tom Henry was there and listened to every word spoken when
Abby educated the crowd! He said to come and speak with him any time regarding
your rivers. Thank you Mayor!
*IPFW Earth Day April 22, 2010 - Save Maumee had a booth at our local college to
speak for your rivers. We like to have ACTIVE events, but encourage events to
raise awareness. There were lots of good give-aways here! We will be there,
supporting Earth Day on its 27th year anniversary in 2010!
*Join us at one of our web communities...we are all about pro-active workings,
so we don't update as often as we should....but we are DOING IT, not just
talking about it!
Please write your
representatives: Tell them you do not approve of past mistakes and want clean
water for our future and would volunteer your time and/or services to support
efforts.
Please
email Abigail Frost-King or call (260) 417-2500 if you have any questions or comments.
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