Our Healing Forest planting event, held on Sunday, Oct 20, truly demonstrated how dedicated all our Free the Fern volunteers are!
The event took place at the tail-end of an atmospheric river, which had been causing flooding throughout the Lower Mainland. Our Healing Forest event had originally been scheduled for Saturday, Oct 19. With the hopes that the rain would subside, we had decided to reschedule in for Sunday. Unfortunately, despite a brief break in showers on Sunday morning, the rain picked up again by mid-day. However, despite the wet weather, our spirits were not dampened!
We were grateful to have 33 volunteers brave the rain to gather at the Douglas Fir Teaching Garden, on the Red Alder Trail. 11 of the volunteers arrived early, at 1pm, to help with set-up of our native plants (a total of 600), tents, chairs, and a large tarp (to provide a hide-out from the rain).
At 2pm, our Healing Forest event begun. Everyone who arrived was welcomed by our friendly volunteers at our sign-in table.
We had a diverse range of volunteers from young children to several elders over 70 years old. We had multiple sizes of gloves on hand and the Everett Crowley Park Committee had loaned us shovels of many sizes, to suit all of our volunteers.
Each volunteer was assigned to one of three planting plots along the East Side of the Red Alder Trail. Each planting plot was led by a Volunteer Lead: Cole (for Plot A), Ellie (for Plot B), and Chinonso (for Plot C). The Volunteer Leads provided a demo and supported the planters in their area.
We planted a large range of shrubs and ground cover, including low Oregon grape, sword fern, woodland strawberry, redwood sorrel, inside-out flower and more. Each volunteer planted an average of 18 plants and we finished up planting our 600 plants by 3pm (just 1 hour after starting our event!)
After planting, we enjoyed some freshly baked bannock & jam prepared by Elder in Residence, Marge Wylie. In addition, Executive Director, Grace Nombrado, led a prize draw, giving away 10 Free the Fern shirts and 7 bags. Grace and our board director, Barbara, were also suprised with a cake in honour of both their birthdays.
Unfortunately, due to the heavy rain, we had to postpone the scheduled performance by the Coastal Wolf Pack (we plan for them to return to perform at a future event with us in June – stay tuned!).
All in all, despite the heavy rain, it was a great event with lots of friendly volunteers and lots of shared laughter.
Thank you to Starbucks for donating coffee. Thank you to Kevin Jinn for your beautiful photography. In addition, thank you to our sponsors: the Community Placemaking Program, Green Streets Program, and Park People that helped fund all our plants, snacks, and juice.
Last, but not least, thank you to our amazing volunteers for your support: Anne, Barbara, Cal, Catherine, Chinonso, Chris, Cole, Corinne, Ellie, Genevieve, Grace, Janet, Jeannine, Jodie, Joe, Kiki, Larissa, Margaret, Marge, Max, Maxwell, Meley, Nargess, Rebekah, Sam, Sherry, Shivek, Siliva, Sylvia, Tom, Westley, Yasmine, and Yohanne.