Wow, what an absolutely smashing success! First off I have to extend my thanks to the 204 VOLUNTEERS who showed up Saturday to participate in the plantings and clean up! Can you believe that number?! There are some seriously awesome folks in Tampa Bay who are all about making a difference any way they can. My most sincere thanks and kudos go out to them!
This past Saturday MOSI held it’s first ever Green Day event to celebrate the week of Earth Day and National Arbor Day. MOSI led into the event with plantings in the Richard T Bowers Historic Tree Grove starting Wednesday on Earth Day carrying through to Friday on Arbor Day. Nine thematic plantings tied in with the unique histories of the trees in the grove were funded by a grant from Fiskars and were installed by another corps of awesome volunteers led by Kristen G our curator of the BioWorks, butterfly gardens and tree grove. (Check out Kristen’s blog Lepcurious for more details and pictures)
Saturday MOSI held a Green themed exhibitor fair in the Richard T Bowers Historic Tree Grove with some wonderful folks including; Keep Hillsborough County Beautiful, South West Florida Water Management District, Natural Resource Planning Services, Morningstar Fisherman, M & B Products, HCC Institute of Florida Studies, Galaxy Eco Wash, Enviro-tech, Green Armada, FL Aquarium Green Team, Baby Girl Cleaning Products, Hillsborough County Solid Waste, Posey Power Batteries, and a few more (apologies to anyone I am missing!)
Keep Hillsborough County Beautiful was pivotal in helping us recruit and register 204 volunteers for the event. Volunteers cleaned up a mile and a half of city roadways including Fowler Avenue in front of the museum and the side streets bordering the Back Woods. More volunteers bagged trash along the nature trails and dug out long buried trash deep in the woods. Another team of volunteers filled bags and bags with seed pods of invasive trees. With shovels lent to MOSI by Hillsborough County’s Special Events Team, volunteers planted 90 longleaf pine throughout the east and west sandhills of the Back Woods. Cub Scout Pack 78, always up to any task, took on trimming trees growing into the trails. An intrepid group of Girl Scouts dove into duty late in the day cleaning and raking the trails. And with some serious gusto, teams of volunteers armed only with rakes and shovels and some serious fortitude filled in the plow line from our recent brush fire!!
Many thanks go out to all the MOSI staff and friends for help making the day possible. Thanks to Phil, Joel, Guest Services, Custodial, Parking, Cafe, Kristen, Sara, MOSI Science Store, and probably a ton more staff I am forgetting. Thanks to Mindy from NRPS for help mapping and flagging trees. Super thanks to Will and T.R.E.E. Inc. for donating nearly 100 longleaf pines for the plantings! Thanks to Steve for helping me schlep all those trees in and out of the truck! Thank you to Walter for taking photographs (and to Erin for letting me borrow him.) And, thanks to Joe and Pat for helping me heft 60 plus bags of garbage in the dumpster at the end of the day!
Our most sincere thanks go to the folks who provided extras for all of our amazing volunteers; thank you to Natural Resource Planning Services for providing over 200 bottles of water for our volunteers, thank you to M&B Products for providing water and juice in their unique bags to our volunteers, thank you to Dunkin Donuts for providing coffee and donuts for our volunteers, super thanks to MOSI for giving all volunteers a free pass to MOSI, and super super thanks to Keep Hillsborough County Beautiful for providing volunteers with t-shirts, sunscreen, bracelets, more water, tote bags, snacks, and other goodies in appreciation of their great service!
Thanks to Pat and Daisy from Keep Hillsborough County Beautiful for all of their awesome efforts with out which the day would not have been possible. KHCB does some really awesome work with almost no staff and more enthusiasm than 100 people!
Here is looking forward to MOSI’s Green Day 2010, Cheers!
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