As we reflect on this past year, we are proud of our accomplishments, but are also convinced that WAWA’s work of protecting, preserving, and restoring our community’s natural resources will be more critical to the health and well-being of West Atlanta communities and the City of Atlanta than ever before.
In 2010, WAWA achieved a number of important milestones including the following:
· Engaged over 600 volunteers in monthly environmental service learning community workdays at the 26-acre Outdoor Activity Center (OAC), the 135-acre Cascade Springs Nature Preserve, the 200 acre Hampton-Beecher Park, and Proctor and Utoy Creeks---logging in nearly 80,000 hours of service and connecting mixed audiences of youth and adults to nature and hands-on land and watershed stewardship;
· Added a part-time Environmental Educator to increase our capacity to connect kids of all ages to nature at the Outdoor Activity Center;
· Completed over $20K of renovations at the Outdoor Activity Center;
· Kicked off the Outdoor Activity Center Park Visioning Process; a nine-month community engagement process to develop a new 20+ year Master Plan for the OAC greenspace;
· Co-hosted the First-Ever Proctor Creek Community Day at Grove Park in Partnership with the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper;
· Trained 35 new Proctor Creek Watershed Monitors in the Chemical, Biological, and Bacteria Adopt-A-Stream Monitoring Program modules;
· Served as a strong community partner for the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper’s Neighborhood Water Watch Program by conducting weekly monitoring of locations along Proctor Creek for analysis for fecal coliform bacteria including E.coli;
· Collaborated with Park Pride to convene a successful Park Visioning Process for the English Avenue/Vine City Communities;
· Cleaned up over 5,000 pounds of trash and debris from Proctor Creek in Northwest Atlanta;
· Facilitated the clean-up of over 10,000 illegally-dumped scrap tires and dozens of illegally-dumped hazardous waste drums from Northwest Atlanta neighborhoods;
· Collaborated with a host of partner organizations to facilitate needed environmental education programming for over 3,000 local youth, at the OAC and Cascade Spring Nature Preserve, including a Junior Naturalist Program for kids from the City of Atlanta Recreation Centers, interpretive urban forest nature hikes, summer camp field trips, urban forestry field study programs for teens, and a Nature in Your Neighborhood field trip program for students from West Atlanta elementary and middle schools; and · WAWA was highlighted in the City of Atlanta’s Sustainablity Plan in its section on “5 Ways to Help us Make Atlanta More Sustainable.”
West Atlanta has a number of environmental challenges as well as many environmental success stories and extraordinary and incomparable greenspaces, such as the Lionel Hampton-Beecher Hills Park, Cascade Springs Nature Preserve, and the Outdoor Activity Center. You can help ensure that the challenges are addressed, the success stories are multiplied, and that the aforementioned green jewels remain maintained and accessible for all to enjoy by making a tax-deductible, year-end contribution to WAWA.
Please click here to make a secure donation, or mail your donation payable to West Atlanta Watershed Alliance, P.O. Box 50043, Atlanta, Georgia, 30302.
Happy New Year, and we look forward to working with you in 2011 for a cleaner, greener, and healthier future for West Atlanta!
It’s the dead of winter, but summer will surely come!
The Petermans are leaving Atlanta to embark on a sailing adventure around the world, and this will be their last presentation in Atlanta before they leave. Copies of their groundbreaking book, Legacy on the Land: A Black Couple Discovers Our National Inheritance and Tells Why Every American Should Care, will be available for purchase.
