June News
Month's Highlights
As we head into the summer season, we are also heading into our planning season for our school programs and community events. We slowed down this May with just a few events such as our birding day at Upper Carr Lake and some science illustration workshops that you can read more about below. We wrapped up our crowdfunding campaign which enables us to support our greenhouse work/ supplies. We are looking forward and preparing for what is to come!
Upcoming Community Events
Everyone is welcome to our family-friendly FREE community events.
We provide gloves, tools, and supplies.
Sun protection, reusable water bottle, and closed-toe shoes are recommended.
We are currently in the process of planning upcoming community weekend events, keep checking our "Events Calendar" for updates or join us at DONS which runs year long!
EVERY TUESDAY | Email jschmedding@csumb.edu
10:30AM-12:30 PM
DONS (Docents of Native Species), greenhouse native plant volunteer group
Reflections on Tuesdays
by Laura Lee Lienk, HSP Director
Every Tuesday from 10:30 to 12:30 HSP's Docents of Native Species (the DONS) meet at our campus greenhouse area to carefully transplant hundreds of tiny native seedlings into larger pots ready for planting next planting season. Not only are our hands busy, so too are our hearts and minds. We listen to each other talk about vacation plans, families, health challenges, local theatre, sports, bees, Burbank High, politics, and other community places we volunteer. And, alongside great snacks, we share books we are reading. Volunteer Mark Hollingsworth just told me about Rebecca Soinit's book "Hope in the Dark" an exploration of optimism in an era of seeming defeat and cultural pessimism. And I, upon reflection, have come to realize that hope and the affirmation of the value of working for nature and humans is the most important part of these two greenhouse hours each Tuesday. Join us and leave hopeful and fulfilled.
What's the Buzz?
by Frank Schellace, Docent of Native Species
Photo: F. Shellace, Clarkia Evening Bee pollinating its favorite flower.
I learned a punny joke recently: What did the bee say to the flower? "Let's be buds!" (hold for applause) Ok, I wouldn’t try this at an open mic but it got me thinking about a fascinating bee species buzzing around Monterey County right now. Hesperapis regularis, the Clarkia Evening Bee, starts to make its presence known in May, pollinating its best bud, the Clarkia flower. Unlike honey bees, which are generalists and will visit almost any old flower under the sun, these bees are specialized pollinators that exclusively visit flowers within the Clarkia genus. Consider their conservation demystified: for this species “save the bees” simply means “plant more Clarkia”. By providing a nourishing environment rich in their favorite flower, we can support these native pollinators and enjoy the beauty they bring to our environment. Want to learn more about bees and how you can help? Follow my bee adventures on Instagram @traveling.hive !
Operation Propagation Update
Thank you to all who donated to this year's Crowdfunding Campaign. We ended up totaling $2,745 in funds to go towards our native plant nursery work area. The support we receive is how we can continue to operate and we could not do it without you.
Staff and Service Learners Spotlight
by Nancy Vielmas, Education Program Coordinator and Jeni Schmedding, AmeriCorps VIP
Everything we did was only through the help of our staff, service learners, CollegeCorps Fellows and volunteers. We are incredibly busy between January and May and so we are so grateful to have a big team made up of all types of people helping keep our mission alive. During the winter, our team showed up at the greenhouses in the cold ready to load up for the day. They carried heavy plants up steep hills and dug hundreds of holes so that our students planted as many native plants as they could. They worked in all types of weather and seemed to have fun doing so. They tended to the little plants in the greenhouses. In the Spring, they kept tending to the little plants in the greenhouses. They picked up litter in the Creeks of Salinas and took intentional breaks to wonder about birds. We had this sweet moment where high schoolers and college students marveled at baby ducks. They helped create positive experiences in nature for people that don't have many of those experiences. It's been such a fun year working alongside our team of almost 60 people between Jan-May!
With some help from one of our service learners, Ariana Martinez, we highlighted our staff to get to know who is behind all the work we do! Although some were not available to participate in the survey we still want to include them; thank you to Nancy Vielmas, Zoe Schminowski, Amelia Schwarz, Alana Owings, Emily Towne, and Cole Mefford for everything you do! Overall everyone said the opportunity to work outside with the community in an environment full of people who love nature is what they love about HSP. Next month we will highlight our CollegeCorps and Service learners from this past semester who helped make it happen!
Science and art: workshops to connect the two
By Jeni Schmedding, AmeriCorps VIP
This past month we had the opportunity to work with Amanda Konishi from the CSUMB Scientific Illustration program to host two workshops: one for our staff, CollegeCorps, and Service Learners and one for volunteers who have been coming out to our community events. The first workshop we went to UCSC Fort Ord Reserve to observe a plant of our choice on the trail and follow Amanda's steps to recreate what we saw in front of us on paper. This gave us a chance to connect outside of work and learn a learn a new skill. The second workshop was in the Community Garden at Natividad Creek Park, here we followed her steps to sketch a cutting of a strawberry plant; then we talked about photography and how the two can go hand in hand. We used paper frames to connect the two together with the concept of how you move the frame can change the story of the drawing or picture. Our volunteers really enjoyed this and it opened up new doors of interests for them.
Amanda sharing her knowledge of field sketching with volunteers.
Sustainable Seaside "Healing the Earth: it's our turn to lead"
Sustainable Seaside invited high school and college students to enter a poem to their Earth Day event, two of our staff entered and were selected as winners. This month we are featuring Philip Yang's poem, "Like the Bunchgrass Roots".
Like the Bunchgrass Roots
The wildfire
stoked ire, fiery blaze
Of the modern climate,
Leaves not a leaf,
Not a tree to see.
though terribly bare,
Please bear witness to aged wry roots sending,
Sprouting seared soil, arms reaching
Gazing sunward, youth and uncouth
Revealing fresh tendrils, resilient
Reveling in their Mother’s
Boundless beauty.
Minds intertwined
Inclined to stop decline
Sought hands to hold
Knew it was time to be bold.
Went from watching crickets
To holding pickets, promised
A better future, that
Grown rooted and wrought new
Like bunchgrass, resilient
Brilliant generation of now
That lead, with deeds
Service and speech
So that one day,
When our blades of grass
Passed the test of time
Sprouts anew can bask,
In warm glow worriless