| EARTH DAY STAUNTON | Saturday April 25, 2026 | 11 AM - 3 PM Earth Day Staunton is a popular event that draws and educates hundreds of area families. Earth Day Staunton began in 2007. It includes interactive, kid-friendly displays from local green organizations, tree giveaways, native wildlife programs from the Wildlife Center of Virginia, Earth Hero Awards and more. In 2024, we had beautiful weather and an estimated 800 plus people attendedāan increase from previous years. The event is hosted by Shenandoah Green and organized with the help of other local organizations including us, Friends of the Middle River! ______________________________________ RIVERFEST | Saturday May 2, 2026 | 10 AM - 4:30 PM This FREE annual event takes place river-side at Constitution Park in Waynesboro, VA. Activities include Reptile World shows, Stream Safari, presentations by the Wildlife Center of Virginia, Fish and Fun Rodeo, Farmerās Market, canoe rides, kids arts & crafts, Stream electro-fishing with DGIF and is capped off by theā¦ Great South River Duck Race!! Rain or Shine ā No Pets Allowed. | | Tire Collection Day on April 30th | | April 30th will mark our third annual collaboration with the New Hope Ruritans toĀ collectĀ tiresĀ during the Augusta County Spring Cleanup week. Last year, our crewĀ collectedĀ 178Ā tiresĀ that went straight to the landfill! Hopefully this year we will collect even more tires to keep out of our watershed. *Note that this is for tires from passenger vehicles and pickups. The Augusta County Landfill will not take tractor tires or tires from tractor trailer-sized trucks.* We could use volunteers for this event. If you are interested, please contact Mason Kilbourn at middlerivermrk@gmail.comĀ or 540-290-3961. | | Clean the Bay Day in Staunton 2026 | | Lewis Creek Watershed Advisory Committee (LCWAC) runs the annual Clean the Bay Day event for the City of Staunton. This year's event is scheduled for Saturday, May 2, 2026. Despite this year's event being scheduled the same day as Riverfest, we still need volunteers to help us clean our usual stretch of Lewis Creek along Commerce Drive, from Columbia Gas to New Hope Road. Following all of the cleanups that morning, everyone is invited to the meet together at the picnic tables at the west of Gypsy Hill Park at Noon, for a pizza lunch, provided by Skyline Rotary. | | Save the Dates: 2026 FOMR Float Trips | | Our first float trip of 2026 will be focused on birding and wildflower-sighting and will occur on Saturday, May 9th. Sign up for the May paddle trip by emailing info@friendsofthemiddleriver.org with the subject "May 9th Float Trip." If you can't make it to our first float of the year, save the following Saturdays in your calendar: June 13, July 11, August 8, & September 12. | | Meet a Friend of the Middle River: Andrea Dono | | Andrea and Pete Cooper hard at work at a Benthic Monitoring site.
Andrea Dono is a Harrisonburg resident and FOMR volunteer. Originally trained to do benthic monitoring with Friends of the North Fork, Andrea was happy to find a new volunteer home with FOMR after the North Fork program dissolved. Andrea is a certified Virginia Master Naturalist with a passion for science and finds benthic monitoring to be a rewarding hands-on experience. A humanities major in undergrad, Andrea enjoys opportunities to feel like "an actual scientist" by being a citizen scientist for FOMR. She wants anyone reading this to know that benthic monitoring not only shows you in real time how healthy our river is but that monitoring is something that anyone can do! You can find Andrea at her day job as Executive Director of Harrisonburg Downtown Renaissance. Thanks, Andrea! | | Upcoming Science Talk in Waynesboro | | Forest Forensics: Finding Clues to the Past in Our Woods Today
Please join us in person or online on April 21st for our final Science Talk of the 2025-26 Season: "Forest Forensics: Finding Clues to the Past in Our Woods Today", presented by Chris Bolgiano, JMU Professor Emerita. Chris describes herself as a "mildly amusing nature writer" who loves "to illustrate and explain the clues to forest history still visible in the woods today. It's a sad history, but it resulted in nearly 2 million acres of national forest in western VA. Today those acres offer our best hope not just for recreation, biodiversity, and clean water and air, but also for mitigation of the worst impacts of climate change." | | Keep Our River Safe: Beware of Invasive Species | | One of our dedicated Friends recently spotted what they are certain was a nutria on the Middle River! Nutria are native to South America, but were introduced into Louisiana and several other states by commercial fur farmers beginning in the late 1800s. Eventually many of the fur farms went bust and the nutria escaped or were released into the wild. Nutria crossed into Virginia from North Carolina, slowly creeping their way along the eastern coastal rivers and wetlands. Why are nutria so bad? Armed with giant, orange incisors and voracious appetite for vegetation, this creature can chew through beautiful wetland landscapes, turning them into bare patches of mud that then become eroded to open water over time. They eventually outcompete native wildlife by destroying their habitat, which is scary for Virginiaās wildlife. If you believe you have spotted a nutria on the Middle River or any of our surrounding streams and waterways, please report your sighting to the Virginia Tech Nutria Eradication Team by emailing Scott Klopfer at sklopfer@vt.edu. | | Donate Your āRetiredā Boat to FOMR | | | | Do you have a perfectly good canoe or kayak that has not been out on the water for a couple of years? Would you like to see it given a new life while bringing joy to river lovers who do not FOMR is seeking donations of used but still serviceable, boats, paddles, and other gear to allow us to acquire a small fleet of boats and open our float trips, river cleanups, and educational programs to a much wider audience. Please consider helping your fellow FOMR members by sharing your old boat and creating many future river trips for your neighbors. Reply to this email if you are interested! FOMR is a subcommittee of the Friends of the Shenandoah River, and your contribution is tax-deductible. |
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