Puget Sound starts in Kitsap County

Wow. I have one follower. AWESOME! This does pose some responsibility though. What to blog about????. . . .

This week, as well as 5th grade field trips at Buck Lake, I attended a KEEP meeting. KEEP stands for Kitsap Environmental Education Programs. This group has been getting together for 16 plus years. Members are all doing some type of environmental education in Kitsap County. We represent government or quasi government agencies like PUD, Kitsap County Public Works (Solid Waste and Surface and Storm Water Management), Conservation District, WA Sea Grant and WSU, but also have nonprofit members such as Stillwaters Environmental Center, the Great Peninsula Conservancy and the Illahee Citizens Group .

The purpose of the group is to network to facilitate members working cooperatively with each other. KEEP has changed somewhat recently due to the interaction with the Puget Sound Partnership and its Puget Sound Starts Here campaign. I have heard positive and negative comments about the Puget Sound Partnership, but I would have to give them a thumbs up because they are funding our group and groups like ours for projects that promote a healthy Puget Sound. This means that KEEP has added EcoNet to its name in order to play. A major result of doing that is that a coordinator for KEEP is being funded. The compensation is small, but Joleen Palmer from Stillwaters volunteered to take the KEEP/EcoNet coordinator position. Also, we were given an opportunity to choose a handful of projects to be funded through EcoNet block grants. Activities resulting from these projects can be found at www.greatpeninsula.org/events.

At this week's KEEP meeting updates were given on the funded projects:

• Still Hope Productions' The invisible shoreline video tour is being shown June 15 at Long Lake County Park, June 17 in Port Gamble and June 19 at Poulsbo Marine Science Center.
• Print and online ads are running in the Sun about activities for citizens.
• Stillwaters Environmental Center is sponsoring shoreline boat and kayak tours
• Rain garden mentors have been trained by WSU

Belonging to KEEP is a valuable tool to help environmental educators to make a difference.