Please send RSVPs to [email protected]. We hope to see you there!

With her passion for the area and for water, Cherie continuously goes above and beyond the basic fundamentals of her job by volunteering time in evenings and weekends. She tirelessly works to disseminate information to help groups plan strategically and to leverage more resources for improving water quality in the region. She has become a central pivot point in the work being done by the many partners including businesses, government and non-profit agencies working toward clean, clear and safe waters.

Cherie is receiving the Clean Streams Partner Award because of her countless hours and dedication for the work she does with Partners for Clean Streams and for the Maumee AOC, which goes way beyond her job description as Maumee RAP Coordinator for Ohio EPA.

We have great news! We’ve been awarded a $17,000 grant from the Stranahan Supporting Organization of the Toledo Community Foundation to support our stream cleanup programs next year. But we need your help.

Our request for this grant was $25,000 – leaving us with a gap of $8,000. Will you help us bridge the gap? Make a donation now to allow us to expand our programs in the way we envisioned to support clean, clear, and safe waters. Our grant will purchase more permanent, re-usable supplies and materials, increase staffing, expand our impact and involve more volunteers for our signature Clean Your Streams event. It will support our Outreach Coordinator’s ability to build and roll out expanded opportunities to remove lead and line in the Get the Lead Out Program. Beyond those programs, this grant will expand our stream cleanup opportunities to reach even more groups and families throughout the year and clean river banks not cleaned during our large scale events. We are so grateful for this wonderful opportunity to expand our stream cleanup programs. But without your support, we will need to trim back what we’ve envisioned to fit within the partial grant support.

As a small non-profit, we are certainly used to tightening our belt, so of course, I’m carefully reviewing this already lean budget. But I hate to change the vision we had for growing our programs. Before we slash the budget by nearly a third, I’d like to give you the opportunity to keep this vision a float.

Think of it this way – when you give your gift, it will already be more than doubled!

Every gift will help and together, you can quickly close this $8,000 gap. Please, mail a check or donate online (click on the Donate Now at the top or on our website) before the end of the year.

Your support keeps our dynamic engagement and education events, like Clean Your Streams Day and Get the Lead Out, coming back better year after year. These fun events inspire students and families, build a sense of community, and keep our rivers and streams safe for people and wildlife. And with your help, and the grant from the Stranahan Supporting Organization of the Toledo Community Foundation, we can continue to grow these programs, reach more people and impact more waterways and share the love of our rivers.

Sometimes our donations come from unlikely and surprising places. Recently, we won a competitive grant from a foundation called Learning by Giving. It’s one of the suite of foundations that the Buffet family have, this one run by his sister, Doris, with seed money from The Oracle himself. This fall PCS learned that we had been nominated for the national grant competition as part of a massive open online course or MOOC which is basically a term for a huge, online-only class. In this course, called Giving with a Purpose, over 10,000 course participants were learning how to strategically invest money in a non-profit positioned to make a meaningful impact and likely to show mission-related results. It taught people not only to look for charities “close to your heart” but to also go through a rigorous research, evaluation and scoring matrix, much like a business or stock investment. Sounds like the Buffet-style of investing, doesn’t it? Through this rigorous and thoughtful evaluation participants learned to focus their philanthropy dollars (of any amount) and efforts in order to maximize results.

Seven hundred organizations were nominated by students and then subjected to a rigorous peer review process. The 80 highest performing organizations advanced to a finalist round and 40 were evaluated and selected by peers in the course, with the Foundation determining final grant amounts (which varied). PCS received a $1000 grant and perhaps more importantly, the recognition that we are making a meaningful difference, are strong in our non-profit management, and are poised to achieve even more good in our community.

At PCS, we appreciate and carefully manage every donated dollar, leveraging every personal gift into thousands more in donated resources to make a difference in clear, clean, and safe waters here in Northwest Ohio. This national recognition is a welcome confirmation that PCS does make a strong impact, which is great news for anyone wanting to donate to a high impact, local non-profit. Your donation matters; it will be managed well; and it makes a real difference.

For more information about the national Learning by Giving Foundation awards, please check out the Results of World’s First MOOC on Effective Charitable Giving and the Giving with Purpose Infographic.

Every year, with your help, we do amazing things here at PCS. And every year we need a chance to celebrate and reflect on our accomplishments and plan for next year. This year, our Annual General Meeting will be held on November 19^th at 6pm at Camp Miakonda. This celebration will include a light meal and a presentation reflecting our work throughout the year. We will also award our Clean Your Streams Challenge winners and the Clean Streams Partner award. Also, voting members will be electing new members of our Board of Directors. We are currently accepting nominations for new board members. If you are interested in joining our board, please contact us for more information.

But before the program begins, everyone is invited to tour the recent restoration work with the Restoring Ottawa River Wetlands and Habitat in the Maumee AOC project at Camp Miakonda. Wear your boots and come early to see how the eroded banks, overgrown invasive species, and a biologically unproductive lake can turn into an ecologically productive, species rich, healthy river, lake and wetland for everyone to learn from and enjoy. If you would like to join us for tours and/or the Annual General Meeting, please RSVP by calling 419-874-0727 by November 11^th. Don’t miss the excitement! Hope to see you there!

The Maumee Corps project began by receiving a grant from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in late 2011 and on the ground work began in early 2013. Since then, it has exceeded our expectations. Partnerships with The MetroParks of the Toledo Area, The Nature Conservancy, The University of Toledo, and The Olander Park System allowed us to create 30% more full-time, seasonal, and/or part-time jobs than we anticipated, all focusing on habitat restoration in the region.  This crew of twenty-nine has addressed over 1,400 acres of restoration efforts including invasive plant species removal, native planting, and preparing for prescribed burning – putting us well ahead of our scheduled goals. Crews will continue to work well into the fall, and will pick back up next year continuing through next summer. There’s much more habitat restoration on deck for our partners, and we’re only half-way through the project. The Maumee Corps wouldn’t be the success it already is without the outstanding leadership and cooperation with our partners. Together, we’re shaping this project to be one of the most visible, on-the-ground cases for cooperation in the Maumee AOC.

When I applied for the Outreach Intern position at PCS in June of this year, I did not think much of it. I figured that someone more qualified or more experienced would obtain the position. Then I received a call from Ava warning me about the work load and making sure I was prepared to take on the dynamic responsibilities. The job description was very clear and upfront but I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Later I discovered that applying for the Outreach Intern position at PCS was one of the best decisions I made in my young life.

With Ava’s brilliant leadership skills, I quickly learned the ins and outs of PCS, how you should never joke around with Paige (she’s all about business), and how important it is to reach out to the public about our vital rivers and streams. The activities Ava had me doing were quite random; one minute I would be mapping our local watersheds on Google Earth and the next minute I found myself picking up 800 apples from the Westgate Farmer’s market for Clean Your Streams Day. My favorite PCS adventure is Get the Lead Out because when participating and teaching people about clean rivers, I feel much closer and connected to the community and to the environment. It is such a good feeling to look out at the river after Get the Lead Out and see how much cleaner it is.

Working at PCS was an incredibly rewarding experience for a copious amount of reasons. I learned how to effectively fundraise for a massive event and interact with businesses to obtain partnerships. Not only did I learn all about our local watersheds and water issues, I also learned how to apply my knowledge to fix the situation. This experience transformed me from a college student who enjoys the outdoors into a professional environmental advocate. Thank you, PCS, for this astonishing experience.

Partners for Clean Streams (PCS) completed additional habitat and stream restoration efforts at Camp Miakonda in September. Last year, as part of the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative funded project, PCS addressed erosion concerns along the Ottawa River and connected tributaries, excavated over 10,000 cubic yards of sediment from Lake Sawyer, treated invasive species like reed canary grass, and revitalized multiple acres of wetlands within the camp’s borders. Adaptive management continued throughout this year, which led to the deployment of contractor Ecological Restoration and Dave Derrick of Research-to-Design. The team further stabilized Hartman Ditch (the Northern tributary at camp) by repairing in-stream structures and added stream bank protection with stone and other natural materials. We planted over 1,800 live stakes of sandbar willow, silky dogwood, and buttonbush that will further stabilize the loose soil on the streambanks. By undertaking the additional restoration effort, PCS expects the two culverts Hartman flows through to flush more easily, reducing the amount of sediment buildup. Partners for Clean Streams is continuing to monitor Camp Miakonda in the coming months. Initial monitoring done by Enviroscience has revealed positive results in the Ottawa River with some exciting fish finds like bass, large pike, and plenty of bluegill. Plant life at camp is thriving and the variety of plants is much improved. Additional fish and insect monitoring will continue in the months ahead. PCS will also be installing educational signage for Scouts and other visitors to learn about the great resources and natural classrooms available for everyone to enjoy and benefit from along the Ottawa River at Camp.