Successful Pilot Program
Ends; Full-Scale River Star Homes Program in Planning Stage!
Watch for the announcement of our full-scale
River Star Homes program, coming soon!
They turned in "action logs" on river stewardship activities ranging
from adding "solar clothes dryers" (clotheslines) to planting trees,
halting mowing along their shoreline to create more habitat and
switching to hand mowers. They paddled together on a canoe trip to look
at river wildlife, visited the Learning Barge and studied "green
gardening" at the Hermitage Museum and Gardens.
And on Saturday, Nov. 13 this sampling of families from the Lafayette
branch of the Elizabeth came together for the final session of their
pilot effort to try out the Elizabeth River Project's proposed new
program, River Star Homes. Over breakfast, they gave feedback on what
worked and what didn't. Definitely the program should continue, they
said --with a few tweaks.
"These families were awesome. They're my new heroes," said Marjorie
Mayfield Jackson, Elizabeth River Project's Executive Director.
We plan to take the best of what worked for these families and build a
full-fledged program that encourages citizens to engage in simple
actions at home. These actions will help restore the environmental
quality of the Elizabeth River," she said.
Depending on funding, the program may be introduced full-scale as early
as Spring 2011, with a special promotion of the program during
RIVERFest on
the Lafayette, a free outdoor event
planned for April 30, 2011.
Meanwhile, the pilot program families plan to get together again early
in the new year to serve as on-going advisors for the effort.
Special thanks to Primm & Co.
for donating our new logo for River Star Homes--and Virginia
Environmental Endowment for funding the pilot period.
