Invasive Species Removal at Colwood Creek Park, July 9, 2023!
Group photo of the amazing community members who joined us for this activity!
The Greater Victoria Green Team spent the day engaging 20 community members from all over the Greater Victoria region to remove invasive Himalayan blackberry from the riparian zone in Colwood Creek Park! Ecological restoration is a team effort that provides many wonderful opportunities for community engagement. It was a great day with a ton of team work as digging out those roots crowns is hard work that is best done in a team!
Before… and After!
Highlights from the day!
- In total 20 community members participated and contributed a total of 65 volunteer hours!
- We removed 22.2 cubic metres of invasive plants and revitalized 166 square metres of the park!
- 12 community members were introduced to this location for the very first time!
- 4 community member learned about and removed invasive plants for the very first time!
Thank you to everyone for participating: Christopher, Stephanie, Rob, Hansen, Ahimbisibwe, Gary, Tsuyoshi, Gordon, Mitchell, Haydn, David, Paul, Iris, Joelle, Fernanda, Trista, Yan Wah, Kimberleigh, Stephan, and Asher!
Thank-you very much to the City of Colwood for partnering with us and contributing to our Green Team activities! Thank you for recognizing the importance of collaboration in community engagement and ecological restoration!
Equally inspiring is seeing just how many people come out to tackle invasive species in this forest! Community members of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds came together on Saturday to connect with each other and with nature. It is truly amazing to see so many people working together towards a goal, all while having fun and making new friends!
We were joined by Spiderman who was walking through the park with his dog and his family and stopped to help remove invasive plants!
By being out in nature doing something positive as a team, our community members:
- Develop a sense of belonging to community and place
- Have improved mental and physical health
- Connect to nature, which leads to environmentally responsible behaviour
- Learn about local environmental issues and actions they can take
- Learn the value of bringing together people to work towards a common goal
- Become leaders in their communities
- Increase confidence, resilience and perseverance
Community In Action!
What Participants Are Saying..
It helps foster community spirit, as we work together to accomplish a shared goal. It helps us get to know other like-minded individuals. We made a great impact at Colwood Creek Park by opening up access to part of the creek and freeing trees so they can grow and flourish.
Kimberleigh
[I feel the impact of this program is] strengthening local ecosystem and bringing hands-on environmental learning experience to participants, especially those youngsters
Yan
[I come to these events because] I need to give mother Earth some love, and I want to help out my community and I want to have some fun!
Joelle
Thank you to the fantastic local eco-friendly businesses West Coast Refill, Gathering Place Trading, Sirene Chocolate, Elate Cosmetics, and Tru Earth that donated In-kind products for our hard-working community members to take home!
Our community members took home a thank you gift from one of our in-kind supporters! If you have any suggestions for sustainable/eco-friendly rewards, know of or own a business who would like to provide in-kind to our Green Team, please contact Kaitlin at kaitlin@greenteamscanada.ca
This Activity was run by our Program Manager, Kaitlin, and our Program Coordinator, Severine!
Severine was hired as part of the Youth Leadership Program, intended to empower the next generation of environmentally-focused community organizing!
We had a special guest at this activity all the way from the Lower Mainland: Lyda, the executive director and founder of Green Teams of Canada, joined us at this activity!