In Austin, Cristina Cordoba volunteered with the Real Estate Council of Austin (RECA) to help provide major upgrades and renovations to the Elisabet Ney Museum. The volunteer group handled new outdoor lighting, improved limestone trails and seating, new fencing, new owl boxes and pollinators throughout the site, a new temporary stage for events, and a repainted shed and bungalow. The group raised more than $80,000 in both in-kind and cash donations for the museum. You’ll see Cristina working the power drill at 00:23 here.
For Columbus’ Soup Day, anyone who didn’t bring soup, dessert, chips, or bread made a $5 donation to eat. The $40 total will go toward their holiday Toys for Tots drive.
In Philadelphia, our team donated more than 200 backpacks and $1,500 worth of supplies to the Harrison Elementary School (in Trenton School District). This donation was part of an overall effort in conjunction with the Ascension Lutheran Church to provide children in need with essential school supplies to be successful in the classroom.
In Phoenix, a team participated in a volunteer event through Feed My Starving Children (FMSC) to help package food for starving children in the Philippines. It was a huge success! The work done by the whole volunteer group (our CEC team and others) will help feed 127 children for an entire year.
In Pittsburgh, Kyle Filicky and Jeni Spang led an electrofishing demo, as did Dan Maltese and Mike Shema. Kyle and Jeni led their demonstration for Friends of the Poland Forest at Yellow Creek in Poland, Ohio. They explained information about macroinvertebrate sampling and Jeni conducted “kicks” within a riffle to collect macroinvertebrates into their D-Frame net. Regarding the Dan and Mike demo, CEC works closely with biology teachers at Mars High School who bring their AP biology students to lead fifth grade students in the field. Because Dan and Mike have been doing this for more than 15 years, they get to see some of the fifth graders who had participated years ago are now high school seniors leading efforts to teach the younger students. The teachers have come to rely upon CEC’s expertise and incorporate our stream findings into reports that the high school maintains and provides to the Township. During this year’s “outdoor classroom” day focusing on water quality/chemistry, stream aquatic invertebrates, and fisheries, the group captured 13 species of fish!
Also in Pittsburgh, Dan Maltese made two bat presentations. For the presentation at Carnegie Elementary School, more than 400 kids attended. Bill Moldovan helped advance the slideshow and Julie Dunlap took photos in the large school auditorium. Both Bill and Julie have kids in the school, so it was nice to have them there. The kids were attentive and they had some great questions at the end of the presentation. The school guidance counselor acknowledged CEC during the introductory remarks and thanked CEC for supplying them with the backpacks and first aid kits from a few weeks ago. The other presentation was for a kindergarten class at St. Joseph’s.
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