“It’s a huge collaboration,” Sharon Rodman describes the volunteer work party at Cotton Hill Park recently. The event was a collective effort by the Green Kirkland Partnership to gather and plant native vegetation to restore this natural area of our lake town.
These restoration events are once a month, March through November, in the city parks and are part of the 20-year Forest Restoration Plan adopted by the City of Kirkland last year.
Rodman, an outreach specialist for city Parks and Community Services, has all the plants inventoried; she knows where they all are, and what species. Her list of benefits of this work is long. Let me share a couple. Trees slow water run-off. Trees convert carbon dioxide to oxygen. People spending their time in healthier areas are healthier. “The forest makes us healthy,” she emphasizes.
Many volunteers swarmed over the park on this chilly sunny morning at 33 degrees. Some of the volunteers were such notables as City Manager Dave Ramsay, retiree Lynn Stokesbury and neighborhood activist Karen Story.
The path through the park “was muddy and had puddles” volunteer Stu Clarke told me. Clarke was working on the stream above the path to avoid dams forming, which would subsequently break, flooding the trail. Last year, he built the path. A plaque on the south end of the trail notes this.
A few days after the event, I caught up with Rodman at her office. “I’m very passionately working at this,” she told me.
She earned her Botany Degree at the University of Kwa – Zulu Natal. She has a Wetland Certificate she earned at the University of Washington focused on Wetland Science and management. Here she happily notes, “I was in the very first class.” Also, Rodman describes her home away from home as “any natural area. I feel connected to the universe.”
The Forest Restoration Plan is funded through next year. Ultimately funding is her biggest challenge. The program is on a grant basis now.
“With the city budget worries,” she tells me, “there is no sustainable funding. We are seeking donors and sponsors.”
Here she hands me a donation form titled “Help restore Kirkland’s Natural Areas” noting “people can donate through our Northwest Parks Foundation, a tax deductible 501 3c.” Sharon Rodman can be reached at 425.587.3305 and greenkirkland@ci.kirkland.wa.us.
