Wawasee Area Conservancy Foundation Hosts Earth Day Festival
By David Hazledine
InkFreeNews
SYRACUSE — Wawasee Area Conservancy Foundation hosted its sixth annual Earth Day Festival Saturday, April 30. Attendees of all ages engaged in a wide range of informative demonstrations and activities despite scattered sprinkles of rain.
The event has “grown every year,” noted Pam Schumm, WACF education officer. “It’s a chance to get people outside to enjoy and learn about nature and how to protect our watershed.”
Schumm added the festival is also an opportunity to showcase WACF’s Levinson-LaBrosse Lakes and Wetlands Education Center located on 40 acres of wetland, woods and lakeshore near Syracuse on Lake Wawasee. “It’s a wonderful venue for walking and relaxation … We just want to give people the opportunity to understand different things and experiences related to nature.”
One of the first tents attendees encountered was Kosciusko County Soil and Water Conservation District’s “Kosciusko County in a Box,” a large scale model/diorama of the county divided into cubes wherein families scoured for features related to conservation as part of a scavenger hunt. Participants were awarded with blue spruce trees for future planting. “This is a popular one,” commented KCSWCD’s Tashina Lahr-Manifold, who oversaw the display, which was surrounded by adults and children alike.
Another tent housed a large map of the lakeland area covered in multi-colored arrows pointing to locations where visitors pledged to do their part to protect the lakes by doing one or more of five activities: use phosphorous-free fertilizer, promote a natural shoreline habitat, properly maintain septic tanks and drainfields, keep grass clippings and raked leaves out of the lake and plant only native plants.
“It’s my favorite charity,” enthused George Nill, who grew up in Syracuse and now spends summers on Lake Wawasee with his family. “Water quality is huge.”
Speakers were featured in the amphitheater beside Lake Wawasee, including Dani Tippmann, a citizen of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma and director of the Whitley County Historical Museum, who displayed furs, shells and bones of lake and wetland animals while explaining the importance of plants, animals and water to the Miami people who lived in the lakeland region before Europeans came to North America.
Hot dogs and refreshments were also available, along with geocaching, face painting, leaf painting and demonstrations of flint knapping, tying flies for fishing, promoting keystone plant species for attracting bees, planting a butterfly garden and many more.