Thank you so much Lower Mainland Green Team participants for your hard work and enthusiasm:
Akshit, Amber, Anwar, Avneet, Behnam, Daniel Haoyuan, Ebru, Gungor, Jagdeep, Jake, Jordyn, Katie, Lena, Mina, Steven L., Steven R., and Tessy!
We had such a blast continuing our restoration work at this park from the day before by planting native shrubs and removing invasive Himalayan blackberry! Keep on reading to find impacts, highlights and more from the day…
Impacts
- 17 community members engaged
- 57 hours contributed to habitat restoration
- 7 people removed invasive plants for the first time
- 11 people planted for the first time
- 11 people visited this park for the first time
- 35+ native shrubs and trees were planted including snowberry, hardhack, nootka rose and red-twig dogwood
- 5 cubic metres of invasive plants were removed (equivalent to the volume of 31 bathtubs!)
- 295 square metres of habitat revitalized through removal of invasive plants and native shrub planting
Highlights
- This activity was our second of the year! We loved kicking off the season with back-to-back activities at Reg Franklin Park, with our first activity taking place on March 9. Read the blog here!
- Our efforts made the NEWS!
- Between removing invasive blackberry, planting native shrubs, and mulching our freshly planted species as well as previously planted ones, we had a jam-packed activity!
- We got to try new things and work together to pull some HUGE blackberry roots, take a look in the photos above!
- Everyone enjoyed refueling with some homemade vegan brownies and fresh veggies
- Community members enjoyed getting to learn about several plant species through our new plant signs, which made their debut at our March 9 activity! Megan Walker, past Lower Mainland Green Team Program Coordinator, worked with us at Green Teams of Canada and talented artist, Vicky Earle, to create these 10 unique signs!
- One of our community members, Steven, took some amazing quality photos we had to include in our Flickr album!
- Despite forecasts showing an 80% chance of rain throughout the day, the weather held up and we barely got a light drizzle!
- Community members joined us from across the Lower Mainland and beyond for this activity, including Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows, Surrey, Vancouver, Burnaby, North Vancouver, and Abbotsford!
- We engaged people of all ages, backgrounds, and experience levels including newcomers from Iran and Turkey, students from LaSalle college, returning Green Team members (some who joined us yesterday too!), and first-timers!
- Special thank you to Anwar for arriving early to help set up and to Anwar and Katie for staying late to help with take down!
Community Investment Partner
THANK YOU to the Alouette River Management Society for providing financial support and direction to make this activity possible!
Together we are achieving our common goals and creating connected, healthy and resilient communities engaged in environmental stewardship.
In-Kind Support
Thank you to the fantastic local eco-friendly business LUSH that donated In-kind products for our hard-working community members to take home!
Please contact Ashton Kerr. if you are interested in providing in-kind.
Why We Do This Work
The Lower Mainland 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
Lower Mainland Green Team Program Manager, Ashton Kerr, and Program Coordinator, Andrea Robles, work hard behind the scenes to bring these high-quality activities to you.
Partnership building, outreach, social media, activity logistics, leading on-the-ground, reporting on impacts and more – they can do it all!