For seven years, Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance has partnered with Oshkosh North High School Communities for their 9/11 Day of Service event. This is an event where students take on a variety of hands-on projects to make a difference in their community. NBC-26 news coverage interviewed one of the high school teachers that participated and led student volunteers, Brad Weber. “Although he says it pales in comparison with what they faced that day, Weber says he thinks giving back through service is a good way to honor those who risked their lives on 9/11 and helps bring something good, out of a great tragedy.” (Seth Humeniuk, NBC-26)

(Photo credit: NBC-26)

For this year’s event, Fox-Wolf’s Trash Free Waters and shoreline restoration programs each hosted student groups for watershed projects. Fox-Wolf’s Katie Reed had students fully engaged in Menominee Park’s largest shoreline restoration projects, having students trim plants, remove invasive species, and collect seeds from native flowers. Additionally, students learned about the benefits of shoreline restoration projects including erosion prevention, water infiltration, and ideal pollinator habitat.

At the same time, students were nearby cleaning up trash and debris from Miller’s Bay–on Lake Winnebago’s west shore. Fox-Wolf’s Kelly Reyer paddled alongside Oshkosh North High School students and staff cleaning up a total of 23 pounds of trash. Included in this total was one large cooking pot, a slimy yellow bucket, a fishing pole, and lots of plastic bags and wrappers.

All of us at Fox-Wolf appreciate the continued partnership with the Oshkosh North High School Communities team, and the hard work of all the dedicated students. To learn more about ONHS Communities, visit www.communitiesonhs.org

For more information, please contact:
Kelly Reyer
Trash Free Waters Program Coordinator
Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance
kelly@fwwa.org
920-915-1502

Support Trash Free Waters
Join the Trash Free Waters Email List

Fox-Wolf’s Trash Free Waters program partnered with Foth in De Pere to host a day of conservation, education, and team-building at Voyageur Park along the Fox River. Team-building events are a new opportunity offered by the Trash Free Waters program that strengthens employee relations, allow for employee connect outside the office, and makes an impact by protecting our water resources. The event took place on Wednesday, August 30th, will Foth volunteers meeting at Voyageur Park and learning about Fox-Wolf’s efforts in the basin. Aquatic Invasive Species (AIS) prevention coordinator, Chris Acy, discussed his work in the watershed, highlighting both nusiance plants and animals in the area, efforts to prevent the spread of invasive species, and different ways volunteers can get involved in this work going forward. The group then traversed to the park’s south side fishing island to identify and properly remove more purple loosetrife plants along the banks of the Fox River. Foth volunteers worked in small teams and efficiently removed over 20 purple loosetrife plants!

After a quick snack, the group learned about how chloride from deicing salts end up in the environment, and the impacts to our freshwater ecosystems and area infrastructure. They learned about Fox-Wolf’s partnership with the Izaak Walton League’s Salt Watch program, and were given Salt Watch kits, containers, maps, and instructions for monitoring along the riverbank. Volunteers grabbed their water samples and used the Quantab test strips to get the chloride reading for their respective monitoring locations. The chloride results were all between 1.2 and 1.4 Quantab units, which is 31ppm(mg/L) or less. As expected, the chloride levels were relatively low as it was August and the Fox River is large which results in the dillution of chloride. Five Foth team members signed up to volunteer for the upcoming Salt Watch season.

Next, volunteers learned about the importance of native plants for their benefits of increased water infiltration, erosion prevention, aesthetics, and pollinator food source. With shovels in hand, volunteers made their way to a native planting on the park’s east side to remove nusiance plants, allowing the native plants more room to grow. You can see what a difference they made from the photo below:

Heading back to the park pavilion, Foth volunteers continued with the native plant topic by making seed balls using compost, clay, water, and native seeds. Each volunteer made several seed balls that, once completely dried, can be thrown to easily grow native plants in their desired location. Before lunch, the group played two rounds of “pair-up” where they each had one word taped to their backs and used their communication skills to find their match. For example, the person with “salt” on their back had to figure out their word and find the person with “pepper” on their back, all without talking.

After lunch, the Foth team was divided into pairs for a team-bonding activity called “blind drawing”. In each pair, one teammate was blindfolded and given a pen and a clipboard with blank paper. The non-blindfolded team member was given an image of a skeleton key and had to use their communication skills to describe how to draw the image without saying what the image was. This activity produced a wide variety of drawings and lots of laughter. We discussed what methods of communication resulted in drawings that most closely matched the provided skeleton key image.

Finally, our last event for the day was doing a park cleanup. Spreading out with supplies in hand, the group cleaned up the park and along the Fox River Recreation Trail for over two hours, and removed 116 pounds of trash! Specifically, the Foth crew cleaned up 22 bags of trash, 727 cigarette butts, 76 platic bags, and 38 straws. Additionally, three volunteers won awards for “heaviest haul”, “weirdest item found”, and “largest item found”.  The Foth environmental team did an outstanding job of improving the park and protecting our waterways.

If you are interested in learning more about Team-Building events, hosted by Trash Free Waters, vist: www.trashfreewaters.org.

For more information, please contact:
Kelly Reyer
Trash Free Waters Program Coordinator
Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance
kelly@fwwa.org
920-915-1502

Support Trash Free Waters
Join the Trash Free Waters Email List