2022-Friedman Family Foundation Presents: Habitat Restoration @ Sand Creek Park

Start Date-End Date: 09/17/2022-09/17/2022 Land Manager Office: City of Aurora Land Manager Contact: Eric Watts Funding Partner: Programmatic Partner: Sand Creek Regional Greenway Partnership Summary: Help remove invasive weeds on this project for volunteers ages 10+ in Aurora. Description: Where You'll Be: The 85-acre Sand Creek Park is located in Aurora and co-managed by the City of Aurora and the Sand Creek Greenway Regional Partnership. Approximately 1,000 people use this park each year including bicyclists, walkers, runners, picnickers, school groups, and community groups. Sand Creek runs through the 85-acre park. What You'll Do: This Saturday project is a great way for volunteers ages 10+ to get outside and give back! You'll spend the day with approximately 30 volunteers as we work to remove a variety of invasive weeds including musk thistle, scotch thistle, teasel, phragmites, hairy willow-herb, and diffuse knapweed. After learning about each plant, you'll spread out along Sand Creek to clip and bag seed heads of the invasive weeds. It's like a scavenger hunt! Anyone that attends a VOC volunteer opportunity in August, September, and October will be entered in a drawing for the chance to win a $300 SCHEELS Gift Card. The more opportunities you attend, the more entries you will earn. Good luck! Why It Matters: Invasive plants out-compete native species for resources and subsequently harm wildlife and the entire ecosystem. By carefully collecting the plants' seed heads, you will help get the infestation under control and help the City keep these plants from spreading further. About Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado (VOC) Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado (VOC) is the state's oldest, largest, and leading outdoor stewardship nonprofit organization. Founded in 1984 to motivate and enable people to become active stewards of Colorado's natural resources, VOC has engaged nearly 128,000 people in more than 1,000 volunteer projects for a donated labor value of $26 million. Through award-winning youth and volunteer programs, leadership training, capacity-building programs, and collaborative efforts with nonprofits and land management agencies, VOC is an invaluable resource in Colorado, especially as our outdoor stewardship needs are approaching near-crisis levels. For more information, visit www.voc.org or call 303-715-1010. Latitude/Longitude: 39.754982, -104.843447 Additional Information: To organize carpooling please visithttps://www.groupcarpool.com/t/9poz2n Please determine the following amongst yourselves: 1. Pick up location 2. When you leave 3. Vaccination status 4. Mask usage VOC suggests coordinating carpooling in the safest way possible and encouraging a mask friendly policy in your cars. If you have any issues finding a rider or a ride, please feel free to reach out to myself. Happy volunteering! Camping Available: No Physical Difficulty: Easy High Altitude Project: No Desired Number of Volunteers: 25 Total Adult Volunteers Attended: 27 Total Youth Volunteers Attended: 2 Total Volunteer Days: 29 Total Unique Volunteers: 29 Total Volunteer Hours: 150 Staff Hours: 15 Stipend Hours: 0 Project Summary: Great project! VOC partnered with Sand Creek Regional Greenway Partnership and the City of Aurora Open Space for the project. 2 City of Aurora staff and 1 Sand Creek Regional Greenway staff joined on the project day. We met at the parking lot in the Sand Creek Park, which was located within 100 ft of the ponds and invasive species. We separated the 28 volunteers into 2 crews to tackle the 2 ponds. Jake and Will from the city of Aurora explained the tasks and volunteers quickly got to work. 5 volunteers put on the waders and hoped into the ponds - they had an awesome time. Everyone else worked from the shorelines and clipped the common reed seeds into buckets. Then dumped the buckets into communal trash bags. Once the pond areas were complete, all the volunteers tackled an area with common reed that was 15-20 ft tall. They made quick work of it, and completely cleared that area right before lucnh too. We took about an hour for lunch (partly because the project was moving quickly, partly because of the line for the bathroom). Project manager did the raffle and thank you/wrap up speech during lunch. After lunch, the remaining volunteers walked 10-15 min. over to another area of the park to remove Teasel. this was a more challenging because the teasel was in a flood area/ravine (not currently flooded) and was filled with trash. One volunteer carried out a refridgerator door from the ravine. Teasel is also sharper and harder to clip. We wrapped up around 2/2:15pm, and all volunteers were at their cars by 2:30pm. Successes and Challenges: Success Completed the original project scope before lunch, so moved onto additional tasks in the afternoon. Volunteers were highly energetic, moved quickly and effectively the waders from the Greeley office were in Denver - thank god! that helped us get all the common reed around the lakes Volunteers even used the golushes to get close to the shore line Some very very local people joined (they walked to the project site from their houses!) Challenges Some volunteers left without notifying VOC staff, so hard to track who stayed for the whole project One couple showed up with their 3 and 6 year old children. The kids were well behaved, but this would have been a challenge if the project had any more danger. Buckets were very useful and I should have brought more so that each volunteer had their own bucket Volunteers had a hard time matching gloves/finding gloves that fit. Lessons Learned: Special Notes: Stewardship Education: Key Concerns or Comments from Staff or Volunteers: Description of Accidents/Incidents: Description of Work Completed: