Overview
AllStar Ecology’s Employer Sponsored Volunteer Program encourages our employees to serve and support our local and regional communities through volunteerism efforts. In 2018, seventeen of our employees (nearly half of our staff) participated in the program, represented AllStar, and provided over 188 hours of community service. We conducted educational outreach at local universities, high schools, and youth groups and also provided environmental surveys, tree plantings, church volunteerism, and local non-profit assistance.
Educational Outreach
In 2018, six AllStar employees volunteered their time at local schools and organizations to educate and teach children, young adults, college students, and school administrators about the environment and how our work relates to it. Participants learned about topics including stream channel design, sediment removal, fish relocation, environmental permitting, agency coordination, electrofishing, bee habitat and surveying, and underwater archaeology.
Environmental Surveys
AllStar Ecology’s staff has a wide variety of experience and education in numerous environmental consulting fields, which allows us to provide expertise to support local and regional community groups and agencies with a broad range of tasks related to environmental surveys. In 2018, an AllStar Ecology Environmental Scientist assisted the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources with rattlesnake surveys at Coopers Rock State Forest. They confirmed the presence of one timber rattlesnake, which was captured, processed, marked, and released in an ongoing effort to monitor the health and distribution of the species in the area.
Community Service
In 2018, several AllStar employees volunteered with numerous boards, churches, and other non-profits to provide a variety of assistance to our local communities including distribution of winter clothing to those in need, riparian tree plantings for Trout Unlimited to increase riparian habitat along restored reaches of trout stream, and support of Positive Spin who aims to make bicycles more available to community members.
Project Highlight – Robert C. Byrd High School
In 2018, AllStar provided environmental permitting guidance to Robert C. Byrd High School in Clarksburg, West Virginia, for their proposed Ecological Park Project. The project involved removing accumulated sediment within an existing stormwater pond located on the school’s property. AllStar completed all applicable environmental permitting including coordination with the United States Army Corps of Engineers and West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection. Prior to dredging the pond, AllStar worked with Junior ROTC members of Robert C. Byrd High and graduate students within WVU’s Wildlife and Fisheries Resources Program to safely electrofish, identify, measure, and relocate fish previously residing within the pond to another nearby pond with suitable habitat.
To read more about AllStar Ecology, visit our About Us page.
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