Collage of CYS volunteer picturesWe couldn’t pull off Clean Your Streams Day without the generous support from sponsors, partners, volunteers, and planning team members.  We would like to express our sincere gratitude to our generous donors who believe in clean, clear, and safe water by financially supporting Clean Your Streams 2019. Many thanks to NOAA, O-I Charities Foundation, LyondellBasell, The University of Toledo Foundation, City of Toledo Environmental Services, First Solar, Lucas County Storm Water Utility, City of Oregon, Kwest Group, and Toledo Waterways Initiative for major financial support. Your support allowed us to equip our volunteers with cleanup supplies, host the Appreciation Picnic, and support the many staff hours that go into Clean Your Streams Day.

The Appreciation Picnic was made even more fun with raffle and door-prizes for our volunteers. Donations included merchandise and gift cards from a variety of local businesses. Some lucky raffle prize winners walked away with tickets to African Wildlife Safari, COSI, the Stranahan Theater, the Toledo Zoo, or University of Toledo Football games. Thank you to all of our donors for making the raffle so much fun!  We would also like to thank Brian Beard for MC’ing the Appreciation Picnic; he did a great job!

Our CYS planning team members work on this program for months to ensure that we have enough volunteers, sites, donations, and support to make the event successful.  Thanks to our excellent planning team:  Marilyn DuFour (City of Toledo), Bryan Twitchell (Monroe St. United Methodist Church), Tim Neiderkorn (UT), Randy Nissen (TECHS), Erika Buri and Rick Bryan (Olander Park System), Kristin Jenkins and Ariya Fathi (Hull Inc.), Andrea Beard and Don Nelson (City of Oregon), Lauren Rush (City of Perrysburg), Kevin Laughlin (Wood County Engineers), and Bob Neubert (Lucas County Engineers). The support and advice that these individuals provided helped to make the planning and execution process very smooth!

Finally, our ‘Thank You’ list would not be complete without acknowledging our awesome volunteers!  We had a really good turnout for this year’s event. Thank you for taking time out of your busy lives to volunteer to make our local water safer for residents and wildlife alike! Please remember that you can continue to support clean streams year round by donating to PCS or signing up for one of our other programs other programs.