holyoutlaw: (me meh)

Note: This is the fourth in a series of Monday posts about the Restoration Management Plan for North Beach Park. To read the others in the series, please click the “Restoration Management Plan” link in the tags at the bottom of the post.

Friends of North Beach Park has been as successful as it has been because of the people who live near (but not on) the park and frequently come to work parties. Our work parties are usually five to seven people, a good number for the spaces we work in. We have a semi-regular crew of people who attend eight out of ten work parties a year. This greatly improves the consistency and amount of work we’re able to do.

FoNBP has tried many avenues to get volunteers for our work parties. We feel the best approach is to consider it like sowing seed: try a lot of things, and some of them will take.

Email

Everyone who signs in to a volunteer event is added to the email list for the park. We send out one large email announcing the work party, generally two weeks in advance. It usually includes some other information about the park or about other organizations. Shortly after a work party, an email is sent to the attendees with a little report.
This email list is maintained by hand, so to speak, using the contacts in Yahoo! mail. FoNBP will be switching to a contact manager program soon.

Tabling

First Set Up

FoNBP has tabled at two different community events, three times at “Art in the Garden” and twice at “Sustainable Ballard.”

Art in the Garden is our most successful outreach event. It is located in the Ballard p-patch, at 25th Ave. and 86th St. This is very close to North Beach Park, and many of the people who stop at our table have been there. Success at this event is getting names for our email list. Most important in 2014 was making contact with a neighbor of the South Plateau and meeting someone who had lived near the park and illicitly maintained the social trails (he’s since moved away). We consider this very worthwhile, but also very pleasant.

Sustainable Ballard is held on a Sunday in late September at Ballard Commons Park. FoNBP has tabled at this event twice with Green Seattle Partnership, to promote Green Seattle Day (first Saturday in November). The first time was very successful, as the weather was beautiful and the festival was jammed with people all day long. The GSP liaison at the table was very satisfied with the number of names we were getting for their mailing list. The second time was much less successful due to bad weather.

Print

Up until recently in 2014, Ballard had its own newspaper, the Ballard News-Tribune. In 2008, there were two articles about North Beach Park. In 2013, they printed another article about the restoration.

Print (as in newspapers) is not a viable option for promoting work parties. The surviving newspapers (both weekly and daily) only print parks-related news items when it fits their agenda.

Blog posts

In 2011 the Ballard blog, MyBallard.com, was very active and posted a couple stories a day. It had an avid readership, and got many comments, both on its own site and on Facebook. MyBallard posted a few articles about Friends of North Beach Park (most notably this one). In 2012, the editors were forced by economic circumstances to make the blog part time, which decayed it considerably.

Service Groups

There are many service groups in the Seattle area that are potential sources of volunteers.

OneBrick Seattle

OneBrick Seattle is the local group of a nationwide organization. The focus of OneBrick is to get people in their 20s and 30s to volunteer. They use social media extensively, and have a large online presence on Facebook, Twitter, and the web.

Four volunteers from OneBrick participated in a work party with Friends of North Beach Park. Considering the time of year (July) this was a good turn-out. And it was appropriate for the amount of work we had to do.
We might work with OneBrick again in the future.

YMCA Earth Service Corps (YESC)

YESC is a city-wide program to attract environmentally interested high school students into service programs. Most of the programs focus on on-campus projects, but some groups work with forest stewards on restoration projects.

FoNBP spoke to the Ballard HS YESC chapter in 2011, and three members attended a work party, but follow-up attempts at contact have not been successful.

High School Community Service

All high school students in Seattle are required to do some community service. Only Ballard HS has a community service coordinator, however. FoNBP has work parties listed in the Ballard HS community service newsletter.
Private high schools also frequently have a community service requirement. We need to contact these high schools individually.

College service groups

FoNBP is working with Seattle Pacific University to participate in their annual City Quest program.

ESRM 100 students

Removing Ivy.

Our experience with ESRM 100 students appears to be better than most. We get a few students and they usually work well. It might be because they have to travel across the city to get to NBP work parties, as opposed to walking down from the dorm.

Other UW groups

We plant to start working with other UW groups, particularly the fraternity and sorority umbrella organizations, and ENVIR 100 students, in the fall.

Corporate community service

After

FoNBP did have one large, fun work party with Nordstrom employees. However, the size of the spaces available to all volunteers precludes corporate events.

Mirrored from Nature Intrudes. Please comment over there.

holyoutlaw: (me meh)

Of value to people around the country is a blog and website called Ecosystem Gardening. There’s a lot of information there, including many book and online resources for specific areas.

Of interest to Seattlites are two workshops. One is next Wednesday (18th), 6:30-8 p.m. at the Center for Urban Horticulture: Wildlife Habitat Garden Design. The cost is $25. Bring a photo of your existing garden for some suggestions and specific advice.

The Woodland Park Zoo will have a series of five classes on Backyard Habitat. The series of five classes can be taken individually for $25 each or the whole set for $100. It looks like an impressive line up of experts from the Zoo and beyond. The Woodland Park Zoo classes are at a variety of dates and times, starting September 25th (a Wednesday).

Both these links came from Sustainable Ballard.

Mirrored from Nature Intrudes. Please comment over there.

holyoutlaw: (me meh)

Another busy month for North Beach Park: EarthCorps 9/14, Friends of North Beach Park 9/28, and Sustainable Ballard 9/29! We hope to see you at one of these events.

EarthCorps at North Beach Park: Saturday, September 14, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
EarthCorps begins four fall work parties by moving into some new territory. We’ll continue removing ivy and blackberry in a more mixed plant community than previous work parties. There is a lunch break at noon, so bring a sandwich. To sign up, visit their volunteer calendar and click on the North Beach even for Sept. 14th. (And if you’re planning ahead, future EarthCorps events are scheduled for Oct. 12 and 23 and Nov. 2)

Friends of North Beach Park: Saturday, September 28, 9 a.m. to Noon.
Join us on the 4th Saturday to help make North Beach Park a better park and Seattle a better city. We provide tools, gloves and guidance. You bring a willingness to play in the woods. For registration and further details, please visit the Green City Partnerships website.

Details for both events
Meet at the main entrance to the park, 90th St. and 24th Ave. NW. Wear sturdy shoes or mud boots and weather-appropriate layers that can get dirty. We provide tools, gloves, and guidance; the work ranges from light gardening to pretty vigorous. All ages and skill levels are welcome, but children must be kept under parental/guardian supervision at all times. Bring water and snacks as you need them. EarthCorps provides a portapotty, but there are no permanent facilities in North Beach Park. Parking is available on 90th St. east of 24th. The #61 bus goes past the park, and routes #40 and #48 stop at 85th and 24th. Check Metro KC route planner for further information.

Sustainable Ballard Festival, Sunday, September 29, Ballard Commons Park (56th and 22nd), all day long
Green Seattle Partnership will have a table at the 10th annual Sustainable Ballard Festival, promoting Green Seattle Day (Nov. 2nd), Seattle ReLeaf, and park stewardship of Carkeek, Golden Gardens, and of course North Beach Park. There will also be many other booths and much information about solarizing your home, rain gardens, bike riding in the city, and more. To find out more about Sustainable Ballard, please visit their website.

Seattle Parks Foundation
Support the restoration at North Beach Park by making a tax-deductible donation to the Seattle Parks Foundation. Visit their website and click on the “Donate” button. All proceeds donated will be used in our restoration efforts.

Mirrored from Nature Intrudes. Please comment over there.

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