Volume 20, Number3 Fall 2008
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Friends of the North Fork Invites YOU to our 4th Annual Fish Fry on Saturday, October 11, 2008!
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| An example of the “River Visions”terra cotta planters that will be auctioned at the Fish Fry |
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Friends’ 2008 Fish Fry promises to be the best yet and a great time to
raise money to protect the North Fork of the Shenandoah River. You’ll
want to attend just to enjoy a beautiful setting. Jack and Sherrie Wain
have generously offered to host our annual event at their home on a
spectacular bend of the North Fork, near Toms Brook. From “Grand View”
you look across fields to the River and Massanutten Mountain rising
rising to the east.
This year’s Fish Fry auction features “River Visions in Terra Cotta.”
More than 20 members of our community - from high school teachers to a
world renown artist - have volunteered to design water-related themes
on terra cotta planters, and each planter will be filled with goodies
including books, wine, and possibly plants! Join us on October 11 from
2-5pm for an afternoon of friendship, good food (by Shaffers) and
wonderful music by Amanda and Ricky Wilkins.
Please visit
Friends’ website www.fnfsr.org to buy tickets online, mail in your
invitation or call us at the office 540-459-8550 and join us at on
October 11, 2008! Please rsvp by October 5, 2008. THANK YOU!
North Fork Notes from Leslie Mitchell-Watson, Friends’ Executive Director
There are many challenges facing the health of the North Fork and the
people, livestock, fish, wildlife and plants that depend on the river
for drinking, irrigating, carrying away our wastes and providing
habitat. We are deeply concerned about the quality of the river and how
pollution from numerous sources is impacting our river and streams and,
thus, our community.
The North Fork needs a defender, and Friends
has served as that defender for over 20 years. Help us continue to be
the “voice” for the North Fork by attending our 4th Annual Fish Fry on
Saturday, October 11. The Fish Fry is our major fundraising event of
the year and we depend on this afternoon of friendship and good will to
support our efforts to protect the River. Please join Friends as we
celebrate the North Fork and our commitment to its protection and
enhancement. Our thanks to everyone who is helping Friends make this a
memorable event!
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Please visit Friends’ website www.fnfsr.org to buy tickets online, mail in your invitation or call us at the office 540-459-8550
and join us at on October 11, 2008!
Please rsvp by October 5, 2008. THANK YOU!
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| Education and Outreach |
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Friends is a membership based organization, which means we need YOUR help to in order to do the hard work to protect the North Fork and its tributaries. We have lots of options for volunteering your time and effort, from office tasks to water monitoring to cleanups. So, please have a look at the different opportunities and email us or give Leslie or Cindy a call at the office if you see something that sparks your interest - friends@shentel.net or 540-459-8550.
Education and Outreach - With help from our education committee we developed and have had a successful year of getting out into the community with our presentation, “The North Fork: My River, My Community, My Choice”. Want to help? We need your creative talents to update our presentation, develop more water related workshops and explore new ideas for connecting with North Fork watershed residents! Call Cindy at 459-8550 for more information.
Get to Know Your Town - defend your river at the local and state decision making levels. We need Friends’ members to attend local town council meetings (Strasburg, Woodstock, Mt. Jackson, New Market, Timberville, and Broadway) and county board of supervisor meetings (Shenandoah and Rockingham) to keep track of the water related issues that go before these decision makers. Water resources need to be a primary consideration in local decision making. Want to make sure they are? Call Leslie 540-459-8550.

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Raise Funds to Help Friends Help the North Fork - Friends needs help creating and organizing fundraising events throughout the year. Do you like throwing a party for a good cause? Please call Leslie at 540-459-8550.
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| auction item from one of our Fish Fry fundraisers |
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| River Monitors |
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Get your feet wet! Our monitoring team needs your help. You can get involved by monitoring a site along the North Fork or one its tributaries. We are hoping to expand our surface water monitoring effort to include bacteria and macroinvertebrate (critters living on the streams bottom) monitoring and we need your help to do this. Call Leslie at 540-49-8550 if your interested in hands on activities!
Volunteer Coordinator - Are you a people person? Lots of Friends’ members are interested in helping to protect the North Fork and that means we need help organizing everyone so we can make the most of their time and energy. Please call Leslie if you would like to help - 540-459-8550.
Cleanup Coordinator - Does seeing trash along river banks and in our waterways get you hot under the collar - us too! Would you like to do something about the problem? Help us find trash and then organize groups to conduct cleanups about 4 times a year - late fall, winter and spring are the best months for cleanups. We’d like to get high school students, civic and church groups involved. If you’re interested in helping out please call Leslie at 540-459-8550.
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Education and Outreach CornerCindy Frenzel, Education Coordinator - Cindy.Frenzel@fnfsr.orgWater Related Experiences in South Africa........
In July, my entire extended family traveled to South Africa to participate
in
a Globe Learning Expedition (GLE). GLOBE (Global Learning and
Observations to Benefit the Environment), an organization that my
father works with, is a world wide hands-on, school-based science and
education program that promotes investigations of the dynamics of
Earth's environment. Or as some participating students said on their
blog: “Inspiring the next generation of earth system scientists”.
We experienced the coming together of students and teachers from 51
countries and saw them thinking globally as they presented their local
research projects involved with environmental and atmospheric
monitoring. Students worked on projects through GLOBE “clubs” in their
schools to learn more about science and their community’s environmental
condition. Many schools collaborate with other schools in their regions
and internationally. (see www.globe.gov)
As I watched students from
Spain and Africa each present carefully made slide shows about the
health of their rivers at home, I had that rare opportunity to see us
as a global community. We all have the same problems, and understanding
them through science is the key for us all to make things better. In
addition, many GLOBE schools are proactive in advising policy makers in
local and regional governments about the identified problems and ways
to improve the health of the environment.
I saw the GLE touch
hundreds of people, and bring them together as one group from one
planet speaking the same language (not just English, which everyone we
met spoke). I saw my children and my brother’s American children make
friends with science-minded kids from Croatia, South Africa, Holland
and the United States, as they went on field trips and attended the
nightly cultural programs put on by the students.
Yes, we saw
penguins on the beach, the Cape of Good Hope, King Protea and Bird of
Paradise flowers growing wild, and baboons on the side of the road. But
one of the best parts for me was seeing the hope for the Earth held in
the hearts of those students and their teachers.
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FALL WORKSHOPMAKE YOUR OWN HOME CLEANING PRODUCTSSaturday, November 8, 10:00am-12:00pm at the Edinburg School
$20 or $10 for FNFSR Members
What’s under your sink and in your closets?!?! Many of our everyday house household products - chlorine bleach, floor and toilet cleaners, all purpose cleaners, insect sprays, moth balls and more contain toxic substances, defined by the Environmental Protection Agency as “any chemical or mixture that may be harmful to the environment and to human health if inhaled, swallowed, or absorbed through the skin (EPA http://www.epa.gov/kidshometour/toxic.htm).” These chemicals are around us and our children everyday - absorbed through our skin and lungs, they irritate our eyes and yes, eventually end up in our river and ground water when we pour these products into our sinks, toilets, bathtubs, and washers or spray chemicals into our air.
What can you do? Learn how to make your own non-toxic home cleaning products! You will be able to make them and take them home with you at the end of the workshop. Deadline to register is October 22. For ages 13 and older.
Register with the Shenandoah County Parks and Recreation Department. For information, visit their website at www.scpr.info. Please tell them that you are a member of Friends of the North Fork to receive the discount.
Look for additional Friends of the North Fork Workshops in the spring, such as “Making A Rain Barrel”, naturalist programs, and Shenandoah River exploration trips - www.fnfsr.org.
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Congratulations! Friends of the North Fork would like to
congratulate long time member George Sylvester for being recognized by
the Shenandoah County Board of Supervisors for his Outstanding Service
to Shenandoah County. George served as chairman of the County’s Water
Resources Advisory Committee for many years and has been a force for
water resource protection in Shenandoah County.
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Calendar of EventsSeptember 24 - Shenandoah County Community Planning Meeting, 7pm at Central High School
SEPTEMBER 27 - Woodstock Chamber of Commerce Business Expo, Ft. Valley Nursery in Woodstock - Visit Friends!
OCTOBER 11 - FRIENDS” FISH FRY
October 18 - Linville Creek Cleanup in Broadway, 12-3pm at Broadway Park
NOVEMBER
8 - Friends’ Workshop on Making Your Own Home Cleaning Products from
10am-12pm - visit www.scpr.info to register!
Friends Board Members and StaffRon Falyar - President
Gary Proctor - Treasurer
Mary Gessner
John Holmes - Science Committee Chair
Margaret Lorenz - Advocacy Committee Chair
Jack Lorenz
Kim Uhl - Governance Committee Chair
Cindy Frenzel - Education Coordinator
Leslie Mitchell-Watson - Executive Director
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