by Frank Wallace

For the past 15 years, the Urban Creeks Council-Sacramento has conducted the popular Creek Week program. Young people, their families, local businesses, government agencies, environmental organizations, neighborhood groups – and many more – have all been enthusiastic supporters of this event. While cleaning creeks is our immediate objective, the Creek Week program also strives to promote broad-based environmental awareness and a llfe-long appreciation of the values provided by our natural resource areas and urban creek corridors.

We also know that many other organizations in the Sacramento region offer stewardship opportunities throughout the year, some that are organized especially for young people, some for adults, and some that encourage participation among all ages. We are aware that it is not always easy to find out what (and where) events are scheduled that might be of interest for volunteers who want to contribute.

To make it easier to find this information, the Urban Creeks Council Board is initiating a project to develop a central web site service that will provide links and/or actual listings of upcoming environmental stewardship events. We want to be sure that interested individuals or groups, such as students of all ages, classroom teachers, community groups, church entities, volunteer agencies, and senior centers, will be able to easily locate opportunities for service throughout the year. We will be collaborating with other groups (such as the California Native Plant Society, the American River Parkway Foundation, etc.) and resource area managers (such as the Bufferlands, Cosumnes River Preserve, Effie Yeaw Nature Center, etc.) to make sure the web content is designed in the most effective, attractive manner possible. For more information or if you would like to help us with this project, contact Frank Wallace at 427-5694 or frankw2@pacbell.net.

This article originally appeared in our Summer 2005 Newsletter