Our First Annual Members Meeting on February 24, 2014, was a great success! On a cold winter night, 28 stalwart Friends of WMC convened in the cozy “Living Room” area at Beth David for a Friends of WMC Park status report and for a talk by Patrick Gardner of the Lower Merion Conservancy. Patrick’s talk was a fascinating window into the history of the park along with information about wildlife that frequents the park and about the ecological challenges faced by West Mill Creek due to excessive stormwater runoff. In addition to the talk, we enjoyed delicious fruit, homemade cookies, brownies and cheese courtesy of Elaine Stern, Events Committee Co-chair, and volunteer member Marilyn Steiner.

We also presented the site plan for our Wildlife and Respite garden to be planted in the Park’s fenced area next to the parking lot. We encouraged all who are interested to help us with donations for plants and landscape rocks for that project, as well as for permanent seating down in the beach area. We have had an excellent response to that appeal—we currently have a total of $1,605 in donations, and all the trees offered for special sponsorship were claimed. We are well on our way to reaching our 2014 fundraising goal of $2,500!

The donation form with all the necessary instructions is attached in case any of you who were not able to attend would like to contribute and help us reach our goal. As it states on the form, anyone who donates this year will be listed as a Founding Member on our website, together with the name of any person or dog you wish to honor or memorialize. The Founding Member list also will be included in our next Annual News Report in early 2015.

We hope to see you at our first work day on Saturday, March 22, 10 to 2 pm. We will be laying a wood chip path with a log border and/or laying down newspaper and cardboard and covering it with mulch as an organic weed suppressant. (By the way, we need more logs, about 6” in diameter and 6 feet long, for the path. And if anyone knows of a Boy Scout troop or other organization willing to construct the log path for us as a public service, please let us know!)

We also need to make a simple compost bin, so if you are handy and would like to donate your talents for this task, please let anyone on the Steering Committee know,

Save the date and save your newspapers!  Our first work day will be Saturday, March 22, 2014 from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.  We will begin work on our Wildlife Respite Garden in the fenced area adjacent to the parking lot.  Our first work day will focus on suppressing weeds and nourishing the soil by laying down newspaper and covering it with organic material.  If you have old newspapers, bring them along!