Thank you so much Greater Victoria Green Team participants for your hard work and enthusiasm:
Adam, Akira, Allison, Bella, Ben, Calvin, Cassandra, Chloe, Chris, Cindy, Corbin, Devon, Emma, Faevan, Gayatri, Gina, Guoliang, Haiying, Harmony, Jaden, Kai Li, Kira, Leia, Otone, Patrick, Poyraz, Shahbaaz, Shannon, Shukhpal, Thadd, Trevor, Viktor, and Xing!
What a fun day we had connecting people to one another and nature, all while restoring habitat! Keep on reading to find impacts, highlights and more from the day…
Impacts
- 35 community members engaged, including 10 UVic students/staff
- 105 hours contributed to habitat restoration
- 12 people removed invasive plants for the first time
- 17 people visited this area of campus for the first time
- 3.5 cubic metres (about 22 bathtubs full) of invasive plants removed
- 200 square metres of forest revitalized
Highlights
- We spent the day removing invasive English ivy, English holly, and Himalayan blackberry plants from the forest at UVic near the Medical Sciences building in an area known as Cunningham Woods.
- It was a gorgeous spring day full of sunshine and blue skies! The perfect weather for being outside and removing invasive plants.
- We saved a bumblebee during the activity! Chloe and Shannon noticed the bee was lethargic so they brought it to a flower to re-energize!
- Habitat restoration is a very satisfying and empowering aspect of environmental stewardship in which to involve the local community and is a great way to connect people with neighbours and new friends.
- We had a lot of fun working together to dig out big English holly tree roots, big blackberry root crowns, and searching for the longest ivy vines!
- Community members Leia and Allison helped out with packing up at the end – thank you for your extra help!
- Everyone loved the homemade brownies, fresh fruit and veggies, nuts, and granola bars, gummies, and juice to help keep energy levels up!
- Community members and passersby enjoyed the additional education provided by our plant signs, learning about identification in a fun, creative way!
- People came to this activity from all over the region. It was great to have a mix of first timers, newcomers to the community, and local longtime residents together! Everyone learned more about local native and invasive species together as a community!
- Participants demonstrated a high level of engagement, ambition, and enthusiasm regarding the impact of the invasive species removal efforts, and an excitement to return to the site to see the native wildflowers and young native trees flourishing!
- This activity marked the end of National Volunteer Week: a time to recognize and celebrate volunteers! We are so grateful for all of the community members who participate in our activities, supporting community-building and environmental restoration!
What Community Members are Saying
Community Investment Partner
A huge THANK YOU to UVic’s Office of Campus Planning and Sustainability for partnering with our charity, Green Teams of Canada, and making this activity possible with their financial support and direction!
This was the last of our 10 activities in the 2024-2025 fiscal year. We have had another fantastic year of partnership and are so excited to continue working together again in the fall!
Together we are achieving our common goals and creating connected, healthy and resilient communities engaged in environmental stewardship.
In-Kind Support
A big thank you to our in-kind supporters: Tru Earth and Green Beaver for providing their eco-friendly and health-focused products to our community participants to take home.
Participants enjoyed Green Beaver’s maple syrup flavoured lip balm and Tru Earth’s plastic-free laundry detergent strips!
These businesses have wonderful, sustainable products that support more responsible consumer choices!
If you’re interested in contributing in-kind or have ideas for potential partnerships, please contact Kaitlin. Your support makes a difference!
Why We Do This Work
The Greater Victoria Green Team organizes hands-on educational activities that have a positive environmental impact to empower people. Through activities such as invasive plant removals, plantings, litter cleanups and more, we are fostering connections with others and nature so that health and well-being is prioritized, lifelong environmental stewardship is promoted, and community members are enabled to take care of themselves, each other and the places they live. We all have the power to make a difference!
We all experience mental and physical health benefits from spending time in nature, including reduced stress and anxiety, and improved mood, focus, memory and more. While doing so, we can also have a positive impact on the environment as demonstrated through this activity!
Staff Who Made This Activity Possible
Our staff work hard to run high-quality community activities. Outreach, activity logistics, social media, reporting on impacts, partnership building and more – they do it all!
Kaitlin the Greater Victoria Green Team’s Program Manager, led this activity with support from Jace our Greater Victoria Green Team’s new Program Manager.
Lyda Salatian, our Founder and Executive Director who works hard behind the scenes to run and grow our charity, also supported this activity behind the scenes!
