Our Accomplishments in 2019!

by Julia Babb

2019 was an amazing year! Lots of hard work, but full of growth and changes that helped Pollinator Project Rogue Valley become stronger and more impactful on so many levels! We had a blast connecting with so many enthusiastic people both inside (classes, presentations, and more) and outside (garden work parties, community events, etc.). Thank you, everyone!

Some highlights from the year:

February: Kristina Lefever traveled to Corvallis to attend the first-ever PNW Pollinator Conference. Accompanying her was Jarrett Taylor, one of the two students at SOU working on the Rogue Buzzway map for their capstone project. Jarrett displayed the map he and Seth Campbell created of the Buzzway to date.

With the assistance of 6 or so Mighty Volunteers, we packed up the old office, cleaned the old place AND the new place, moved all our “stuff”, arranged and rearranged the new space, got acquainted with our wonderful neighbors at Essential 3, and then flopped down into our chairs. Whew! We love our comfortable, practical homebase in the Beyond Toxics office we lovingly call “the Pollination Place”.

March: Thanks to Wanda Borland, producer at Rogue Valley Community Access TV (RVTV), we were featured twice on RVTV’s show, “Animals Matter”, with host Julia Babb. With Wanda’s guidance, we also produced two PSAs, one about neonicotinoids, and one about the Rogue Buzzway project. If you haven’t seen these, watch them here.

We were thrilled to be selected as one of the first community organizations for the Medford Food Co-op’s innovative “Positive Change” program! We had fun tabling at the Co-op, and are very honored to have received such amazing financial support from our community. These funds have been so helpful to support our Non Toxic Southern Oregon work.

April: We celebrated the progress of our Rogue Buzzway mapping project at the Talent Community Center. It was a lovely gathering of people around the Valley, with talks by Gerlinda Smith, Dolly Warden, Free Walker, and others. Ja