Orcas Love Raingardens

In partnership with Tacoma Public Schools and several organizational groups PCD works to ensure all Tacoma students and their families will have access to educational, interactive raingardens, and will have opportunities to learn about the role of Green Infrastructure in protecting orcas.  Orcas Love Raingardens currently work with 10 schools and is growing in 2021 by adding two school rain gardens at Reed and Stafford.

Programming in 2020 looked a bit different this year due to the pandemic and we were not able to work with students in our traditional form; however, rain garden work continued!  Over the past summer we worked as staff and in small volunteer groups to enhance 7 rain gardens at 4 schools, installed 2 new rain gardens, and completed site needs at our Green Tacoma Day and Orca Recovery Day events with 20 hardworking volunteers. 

Work to establish new rain gardens will begin again in spring 2021.  We have a OLR Volunteer List of community and school folks who are interested in supporting this effort.  If you would like to be made aware of future volunteer opportunities to support this program, contact Melissa.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Caring

January 18th, 9am-12pm

Volunteer with us by spending 3 hours at one of 6 active sites in Puyallup or Fircrest. Activities will include ripping out invasive plants and planting native plants that support our local wildlife and pollinators. 

To adhere to COVID guidelines we can only have 4 volunteers at any one site, so RSVP fast to get a spot!

RSVP TODAY!

If spots fill, don’t fret.  We will put you on our waiting list and create similar volunteer opportunities at one of our managed lands just for you.

Stream Team (side bar)

*We are starting to schedule trainings for new Stream Team monitors right now. If you would like to be put on a waiting listing for a training, please contact Belinda at belindap@piercecd.org.

Stream Team is a volunteer water quality monitoring program operating in Pierce County since 1994. Monitors measure pH, dissolved oxygen, nitrates, turbidity, water temperature, flow and record habitat observations on prioritized sites.

Goals include:

• Watershed education
• Involve the public in community science monitoring
• Increase available water quality data
• Identify areas of concern