WOONASQUATUCKET RIVER WATERSHED COUNCIL

27 Sims Avenue, Providence, RI 02909 www.WRWC.org 1

Thank You, Donors!

Thanks to You, Red Shed Bike Camp is Back!You made the first year a huge success, so we’re doing it again!Red Shed Bike Camp is a fun, inexpensive way to get local kids active during the summer! Our experienced counselors teach campers how to safely ride and repair their bikes. Campers get a free lunch each day, and at the end of the week, each camper gets a free bike, lock, and helmet to keep! In fact, Bike Camp is so much fun

that it was recently featured on the NBC 10 News!

Thanks to your donations, Bike Camp only costs $150 per week, and we can give 50 kids full scholarships!

The camp has eight one-week sessions from June 30th to August

22nd. Camp is run through the Red Shed Bike Shop at Riverside Park in Providence. If you know a child who wants to join in on the fun, visit our website - wrwc.org - for an application. To apply for a scholarship, call Camp Director, Ryan Mundy, at (469) 708-9792. A huge thank you to all of our donors, and especially to United Way of RI, the RI Recreational Trails Program, the RI Bike Coalition, the Providence Recreation Department, and the RI Department of Health for helping

Bike Camp return this summer!

Our River Hero!

The River Network honored our founder, Jane Sherman.Page 2

Record Number of Fish in the Woony Thanks to your dedication, the number of fish spawning in the Woonasquatucket has sky-rocketed over the past few years! Page 3

Electro-Shock Fish Monitoring Surveying Woony fish just got a little more exciting. Page 3

Rangers Rule Save the Date!Our 5th Annual Woony River Ride: Saturday, September 20th - sign up today!Page 4

Newsletter Summer 2014

The River Rangers are hard at work keeping our Greenway safe and beautiful. Thanks to your support, we were able to hire eleven local youths this year!Page 4

Mike and Helen Lusi, and Eric Poulin, valued WRWC donors, join our board and staff on a downtown Providence paddle.Photo Credit: WRWC Board Member, John Tabor Jacobson.

Three of this year’s campers: (from left to right) Ben, Jayden, & Emmanuel.

WOONASQUATUCKET RIVER WATERSHED COUNCIL

2 www.WRWC.org 27 Sims Avenue, Providence, RI 02909

Jane Sherman’s passion and hard work made Anna Browder first become interested in the Watershed Council. Now, she has been a valued donor for over seven years! Anna continues to give to the Watershed Council because she wants to help us give community members the resources to protect their environment.

Anna especially loves our youth programs, like the Red Shed Bike Camp and the River Rangers! Anna’s favorite Watershed Council program is Bike Camp: “It is wonderful to give children skills they can use this year, next year, and throughout their lives, to engage them in an outdoor activity that does not require much money.” She also hopes that leading volunteer projects will encourage our Junior Rangers to volunteer themselves in the future.

Anna said, “I think the Watershed Council is a wonderful example - a model - for how a nonprofit can revitalize a neighborhood.” Thank you, Anna, for your continued support!

Your Support Helped Make Our Founder, Jane Sherman, a 2014 River Hero!

Anna Browder in Italy

Photo Credit: Sabra Lee

Donor Spotlight: Anna Browder

Mrs. Jane Sherman was one of a select few from around the world to be named a 2014 River Hero!

We are so proud and excited that the River Network named Jane Sherman a River Hero at the National River Heroes Banquet on June 2nd! Jane earned the honor because of all her hard work making Olneyville, Providence, a better place to live. In addition to founding the WRWC, Jane led the effort to clean the Woonasquatucket River and built a bike path and parks along the River. Her work and many others’ decreased crime around Riverside Park in Olneyville by 80%! Thank you, River Network; congratulations, Mrs. Jane Sherman!

Senator Jack Reed kindly said, “Jane’s remarkable commitment has led to a real transformation, not just of the Woonasquatucket River, but she’s helped improve the quality of life and opportunities for those in the surrounding community.... I salute Jane and everyone at the Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council for their outstanding work.”

A HUGE “thank you” to our top 20 individual donors:

Ms. Merrill W. ShermanMr. & Mrs. Almon HallMr. & Mrs. Paul Coe Nicholson, Jr.Mr. H. PrestonMr. Dave AndersonMr. Richard OliveiraMr. & Mrs. John DyeMr. Dean & Mrs. Lisa AudetMr. & Mrs. James PadburyLucia & Peter Gill CaseMr. Raymond ByrnesMs. Anna BrowderMr. & Mrs. Deming ShermanMs. Cynthia PattersonMr. James GeibMs. Maria Aliberti LubertazziMr. V. Rolf JohnsonMr. Timothy O’Connor, PEMs. Kathie FlorsheimMr. & Mrs. Donald T. Burns

WRWC Executive Director, Alicia Lehrer, presents Jane Sherman with the 2014 River Hero Award

Photo Credit: Jeff Walker

WOONASQUATUCKET RIVER WATERSHED COUNCIL

27 Sims Avenue, Providence, RI 02909 www.WRWC.org 3

We Love Our Donors and Volunteers!

Over 40 volunteers helped us count spawning fish at the Rising Sun fish ladder! We found an incredible amount of fish this year! Take a look at the numbers of fish we have counted over the past four years:2011 - 7,2692012 - 9,2642013 - 12,3362014 - 39,518The Woonasquatucket is now a successful spawning site because your help allowed us to build two fish ladders and to remove two dams. Now, the fish can spawn in the whole lower river up to Manton Dam in Johnston! We are planning to build a special, nature-like bypass around this dam in 2015, but we need your help! In addition to all of our volunteers and donors, we would like to thank the RI DEM Fish & Wildlife Staff, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, the US Fish & Wildlife Service, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries), the US Army Corps of Engineers, the US EPA, the National Fish & Wildlife Fund, and the RI Coastal Resources Management Council.

Your donations help us recruit volunteers of all ages, who joined us in electro-shocking the fish. Don’t worry - the fish are OK! The electro-shocker briefly stuns the fish so we can accurately measure them. In our surveys, we have found not only six species of fish, but also a blue crab, Asiatic clams, and about 50 eels!

This project was funded by you, our donors, and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Small Urban Waters grant program. For this project, we work with the Wood-Pawcatuck Watershed Association to measure fish at three different urban rivers. We will measure the fish every year and compare numbers and types of fish from urban waters with those in rural areas. We are using our data to track water quality at each of the rivers. We are happy to announce that we have finished measuring the Woony fish for this year! Thank you to the EPA, Wood-Pawcatuck Watershed Association, our volunteers, and all of our donors who made this happen! We are having a great time surveying the fish with you!

Our Volunteers Counted Record Numbers of Fish in the Woony... And Helped With Our Electro-Shock Surveying!

Volunteers gather to identify fish from the WoonasquatucketPhoto Credit: Jeff Walker

Fish counter Bruce Campbell

Photo Credit: James McCarthy

Your help makes our volunteer monitoring programs happen!

WOONASQUATUCKET RIVER WATERSHED COUNCIL

4 www.WRWC.org 27 Sims Avenue, Providence, RI 02909

Thanks to your generous donations, our River Rangers program has been running for over ten years now!

This year, we hired eleven local youths (16- to 24-years-old) to maintain the Fred Lippitt Woonasquatucket River Greenway as Junior River Rangers. Two Senior River Rangers - Dan Cahill and Tom Galloway - teach our Junior Rangers landscaping and basic job skills, like project management.

Because of your support, our Rangers had extra training this summer! They met Councilwoman Sabina Matos, National Park Ranger John McNiff, and many more! Thank you to all of our donors, especially to the RI Department of Transportation and United Way of RI, for funding our 2014 program. Come visit the Greenway soon to see our Rangers’ hard work!

Join Us! Saturday, September 20th: 5th Annual Woony Ride

River Rangers Rock!

Come for the ride, or just support our staff fundraiser! For the first time ever, the 5th Annual Woony River Ride will combine not one but two American Heritage Rivers - the Woonasquatucket and the Blackstone River! You can also challenge yourself by riding this year’s new metric century (62.5 mi) route. Thank you, donors, for making this year’s Woony Ride the biggest and best yet! Now, you can choose from five different bike routes: a metric century, 50 miles, 27 miles, 10 miles, or a 5-mile walk or ride. After your ride or walk, come to Waterplace Park, Providence, for an after-party with our celebrity MC, Kristin Lessard, host of the B101 Morning Show! The party will also have free lunch, live music, and prizes! Prizes include bike gear courtesy of Legend Bicycle, gift certificates, art, and more! We will reward our best fundraisers with extra prizes, like a fish helmet cover to show your support while you ride. Thank you in advance for all of your hard fundraising work! All the money you raise goes to the River Rangers program, scholarships for the Red Shed Bike Camp, and an extension of the bike path into Johnston - for future Woony Rides! Special thanks goes to our Launch Sponsors: The Foundry, Fuss & O’Neill Inc., and Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc. The Woony Ride is made special by our in-kind sponsors: Legend Bicycle, Clear Channel Media, 95.5 WBRU, Coca-Cola, Delin Design, Julian’s, MetroPark LTD, the City of Providence, and WaterFire Providence.

Register today at www.woonyride.org!

Our 2014 Ranger Team

It is always fun with Amanda Blevins, WRWC Program Director

Join regular rider Ed Raff this year