Friends Of The Napa River Inc

Programs: In school watershed education; shari gardner, our executive director and education coordinator, provided dozens of lessons to local school children in classrooms and on field trips to the napa river, for more than 1,000 student contacts. This is an on-going program that we developed and implemented to provide environmental education about the napa river watershed with its flora and fauna. Watershed information was also made available to the public at community events throughout the year.

we collaborated with the napa county rcd on their '5,000 oaks initiative' (a continuation of our collaborative acorns to oaks project) in an effort to re-establish oak trees throughout the napa valley and provide students and the community with education about the ecological importance of our oak trees. We provided a $5,000 match in staff time, teaching more than 630 students and community members about oak ecology and helping them plant more than 1000 oak trees during ten oak planting field days.

we also collaborated with the rcd for the creation and implementation of the napa youth stewardship council. This is an after school program for motivated napa and american canyon high school students, providing opportunities to learn about local ecological issues, meet and learn from environmental professionals, develop leadership skills and improve local ecology through development and implementation of service projects.

we are collaborating on the wild napa lecture series, as well: providing monthly lectures on wildlife related topics to the general public at the napa library, reaching around 600 contacts.

we are the fiscal sponsor for the environmental education coalition of napa county (eecnc). Their major source of revenue is earth day. Using some of the funds generated from the event, they have sponsored numerous school trips to outdoor education events.