Engaging the Wild & Scenic towns, watershed residents and river enthusiasts is one component of the Wild & Scenic Westfield River Committee’s stewardship and education efforts. Through the years there have been a range of outreach activities:
- Watershed Blitz, where volunteers gather environmental data en masse
- Workday-trainings where landowners can learn how to identify and manage invasive plant species.
- Travel the Watershed Suitcases are made available to libraries and others loaded with valuable information about the river, stewardship and ecological topics.
- The River Comes Alive Puppet Making: workshops with grade school children who learn about the creatures that call the river home. The puppets they create have then been paraded at various community events.
- Public Murals: Middle school students create murals of their impressions of the river ecosystem as a part of a summer school curriculum.
- Books to libraries have donated river themed story and science books to the ten Wild & Scenic town libraries.
- Working with our ten Wild & Scenic towns to transition from de-icing to ice prevention methods to reduce salt use, damage to the environment, reduce costs to the towns and improve winter road conditions.
- Work with our ten Wild & Scenic towns to proactively prevent the spread of invasive plant species.
The Wild & Scenic Westfield River Committee’s work shifts to address the ever changing needs of our river, watershed and communities and so do our outreach and education programs. Consider proposing a program or participating in an existing one.
