Highlighting a Few of PPRV's Pollinteers - 2025!

During each year's Giving Season, we like to highlight some of our staff and volunteers, the amazing people who give all year long to help us do what we do.

This year, we enjoyed getting to know Randy, Alisa, Kara, Ethan, and Kenda! If you didn't already read about them in our November and December The Pollinator Times e-newsletters, here's your chance to get to know them, too!

PPRV is honored to have many volunteers who help Plant H.O.P.E. - including this amazing fellow...

PPRV has the outsized good luck of working with dedicated volunteers like Randy Stevenson. A native of the U.S. heartland, Randy moved to the Rogue Valley four years ago with his soulmate, Nicole. Since practically the first day they arrived in Southern Oregon, Randy and Nicole have devoted an extraordinary amount of time, energy, and goodwill to almost every PPRV activity, even - and especially - the many not-very-glamorous jobs. In exchange, their appreciation for the natural world has deepened as they have come to learn more about the marvelous world that pollinators create with their every action. Randy and Nicole are proof that small actions can have big impacts. In addition to volunteering on a regular basis with PPRV, they have completely transformed their own yard in Talent from all non-native ornamental plants to a thriving native plant garden supporting many incredible pollinators. 

The work of volunteers like Randy enables PPRV to make life-long connections with pollinators, the irreplaceable members of our local ecosystem.  These connections are needed more than ever: pollinator populations have declined - on average up to 75% – due to habitat loss, pesticides, and climate change. 

Click the image to find out Randy's answers to our questions!

When we have plant questions, this Pollinteer probably has the answers...

Have you met Alisa Sawich, one of PPRV’s go-to plant people? You may have already encountered her at one of our native plant sales: Alisa is one of our beloved Ask-an-Expert answer people! We also want to acknowledge Alisa's dedicated service to OSU's Land Stewards program!

Alisa comes from a family of artists, an excellent foundation for her work with the Washington State Department of Transportation. As as a landscape designer (not a botanist as we incorrectly stated in The Pollinator Times), Alisa worked to restore roadsides and waterways that had been impacted by highway construction. It takes a lot of imagination and skill to revive miles of disrupted landscapes so that they become functioning and pleasing to the eye, even as people hurtle by at 65 miles an hour!  

In addition to being a regular Ask-an-Expert for PPRV, Alisa has donated hundreds of gorgeous native plants grown in her own personal nursery, plants you will admire at any speed!

Click the image to find out Alisa's answers to our questions!

Inspirational. Marvelous. Amazing. Extraordinary. Spectacular. Rad!

Those are just a few words that describe Ethan Robison, Education Coordinator for PPRV's Pollinator Pals Youth Education program. As full-time staff, Ethan is always busy either teaching, or scheming how to expand the reach of the “pollinators are the best” message. Ethan loves to ask 'did you know ....' so he can share a very interesting factoid that the listener probably didn't know! *

Ethan brings his theater background into his work, which partly explains his wonderful ability to engage young people in the wonders of pollinators and plants - the microscopic (did you know bees have 5 eyes?), the yucky (what happens when a fly lays its egg in a caterpillar?), the unusual life cycles (how many species of wasps can live in one gall, and what's a gall anyway?), and more. Students of all ages respond to his excitement - and knowledge - about the subjects.

* Thanks to Ethan's hard work, look for a new book from PPRV early next year that will share some of these amazing facts - and more! 

Click the image to find out Ethan's answers to our questions!

Giving Season is also Planting Season!  

We are proud to highlight Kara Barndollar, our part-time Native Plant Nursery Manager, this giving season! Why? For many reasons - and especially because Kara's contributions are at the core of our Plant HOPE message this year - “Helping Our Pollinators EVERY day!"

Under Kara's leadership, we are able to grow native plants; collect, clean, and plant seeds; and provide food for pollinators that visit our small nursery -- and ultimately your yards, too, once you've taken home some beautiful native plants! To paraphrase, neither "snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night" keeps her from keeping our nursery at its best.

Kara has extensive experience managing farm operations. Since moving to Southern Oregon several years ago, she has acquired a brand new knowledge base working with our region’s numerous and diverse native plants. While enjoying our weekly volunteer days (thank you, volunteers!), she is fearless about managing the nursery, which requires constant vigilance, upgrades, repairs, record-keeping, and more. Yep, keeping plants alive and healthy is hard work - but it's glamorous, too!

Click the image to find out Kara's answers to our questions!

Helping PPRV Plant H.O.P.E.!

Kenda Swartz lived here in the Valley until she moved to Rhode Island in 2019. However, despite the distance, she continues to donate to PPRV each year to support the work we do because she knows how important it is.

We also love Kenda because she’s a word nerd and published author - and shares our daily enthusiasm for pollinators! Courtesy of Kenda, we’ve brought you a few fun facts about your local native pollinators!

• Over 80% of flowering plants rely on pollinators to reproduce.

• Native bees in Oregon are some of the hardest workers—many pollinate better than honeybees!

• Pollinators aren’t just bees - they're also butterflies, beetles, moths, hummingbirds and more!

• There are over 800 species of bees JUST in Oregon, and 75% of them are solitary (they don’t live in a hive) and make their nest in the ground. 

• Without pollinators, coffee, chocolate, and berries disappear from our plates.

• Bees actually do have “knees”.

Surprised by any of these? You’re not alone. But here’s the fun part: together, we can protect these unsung heroes with every garden we plant, every class we teach, and every plant we sell.

Click the image to find out Kenda's answers to our questions!

Interested in becoming a Pollinteer, receiving our e-newsletter, The Pollinator Times, or supporting our work financially? Click here to Bee-come Involved!