Did you know that April is National Volunteer Month? Spend a day or more giving back to the islands’ natural places we all love during April and May. Work with your neighbors to maintain trails in beautiful Moran State Park on Orcas Island, clean up a beach on San Juan, Orcas, or Lopez Islands, ride your bike in the Tour de Lopez and then enjoy the All-Species Parade in Lopez Village.
Other Earth Day stewardship events throughout April make a great learning opportunity for families with children. The San Juan Island National Historical Park Bio-Blitz, May 20-21, is a family oriented species inventory in which teams of volunteers, each led by an expert scientist, find, identify, and photograph as many species as possible within a defined amount of time. This snapshot view helps scientists understand what lives in this national treasure of a park, and help conserve it for future generations.
“Inspired by the incredible jewel of the San Juan Islands,” and in celebration of Earth Day, San Juan Islands Museum of Art new director Ian Boyden welcomes you to”Fragile Waters,” April 23 through September 5; an exhibit of black-and-white photography by Ansel Adams, Dorothy Kerper Monnelly and Ernest Brooks, all world renowned photographers and lifelong environmentalists. Find out more at www.visitsanjuans.com/voluntourism-earth-day-events, along with information about quiet-season lodging, dining specials and more. Additional events and opportunities will be added to the website as available.
Lopez Island
• The Great Lopez Island Clean-up Earth Day Event, April 23, BLM, San Juan Islands National Monument, San Juan County Land Bank. Clean up a beach and then enjoy the Annual All-Species Parade in Lopez Village.
Orcas Island
• Great Islands Cleanup, April 23, Orcas Island.
• Elementary school students are planning an Earth Day parade through town starting at the school at 1:15 p.m. on Friday, April 22. They will be handing out seed packets that they made filled with seeds saved from the school garden.
“Our students show appreciation for our earth through the stewardship of the school garden and related projects throughout the year in Farm to Classroom,” said teacher Mandy Randolph.
