| SOQUE BULLETIN July 30, 2014 1) Help Mulch Trees at Level Grove Elementary - Monday, August 4th 2) Consider Donating an Item to the SRWA
3) Soquee River Days Contest extended to END OF YEAR
4) Welcome Scarlett Fuller as our Special Projects Assistant
4) 2014 Georgia Mountains Farm Tour - Huge Success
5) Locally Grown Expansion to Gainesville - highest sales ever
1) Help Mulch Trees at Level Grove Elementary - Monday, August 4th  In preparation for the new school year starting a week from this FRIDAY, The SRWA and Level Grove Elementary School could use your help! Back in January we planted trees and spread mulch all over Level Grove in an effort to stop the erosion of soils and help to beautify the school grounds, making them more environmentally friendly and pleasing to the eye. The results are fantastic to see, but a little more needs to be done.
Next MONDAY, August 4th at 9am we could use some VOLUNTEERS to help us spread the abundant leaf and chipped wood mulch stockpiled by the city of Cornelia around all the young trees that we planted back in January. Such mulching will help the survival of trees by providing more moisture to the tree roots, increase the nutrients available to the trees, reduce erosion from the land, and increase water infiltration of rainfall. That's a lot of good things for a few hours of shoveling and raking.
To help out, bring a rake, shovel, gloves, wheelbarrow or truck if you have any of the above. We'll be trying to move mulch from several stockpiled locations to each tree and bare area across the school. There is lots and lots of ground to cover. So as many hands as we can get the better.
If you think you can make it please RSVP to soque@windstream.net. Let us know if you have a truck or wheelbarrow too so we can guess how many we need to loan.
Thanks for being a part of this great effort. More before and after photos can be found at
2) Consider Donating an Item to the SRWA
Even though the SRWA is well on its way to a full recovery from the Fire in March, every week we realize there is yet another item that we no longer have. Incredibly, probably 90% of our restocked office has come via donations from the community. It's made us realize that before we purchase anything we should always inquire to see if our supporters may have items they are getting rid of anyway that would be of great use to us. Take a look at our wish list and if you have other items that you think may be of use don't hesitate to offer them. These gifts have made a huge difference!
Office Wish List:
Foot mat
3 x 5 rug for front door
5 x 7 rug for foyer area
Mop and Bucket
Compact wood desk – for front office (send photo)
River / Nature themed wall art
Receipt Book
Tape dispenser
Business phones (with hold and speaker phone features)
Digital Projector (this is a longshot we know)
Good desktop computer
Flat panel monitors w/ power cords
Working color/photo desktop printer
Software for Microsoft or Mac computers
Thumb drive
Easel and Flip Charts
Foam Core boards to display maps on
Wall clock for front desk
Tent Canopy
Lamp
Lamp shade to fit a bulb
Tabbed manila folders
Manila envelopes (all sizes)
Standard mailing envelopes
Folding table
Correction tape / or white out
Hanging file folders
Notepads
Post Its If you have an item to donate please notify Scarlett Fuller at soque_scarlett@windstream.net to schedule a time to drop it off.
3) Soquee River Days Contest extended to END OF YEAR  The last 3 months have been one of the best periods in SRWA's history of getting out and meeting new people, and discovering a wide array of people's experiences of the Soque Watershed that we've never encountered before.
This has been thanks in large part to our SOQUEE RIVER DAYS project (*yes that spelling is correct...check the blog site for an explanation) to collect submissions of people's experiences anywhere in the entire watershed basin. We've had over 15 submissions so far, and more are coming in every week.
Starting this week we'll be posting ALL submissions as they come in to our FACEBOOK page as well as to our Blog Site that already has all our submissions to date. EVERYONE including YOU has a SOQUE STORY, PHOTO or ARTWORK to share so please don't be shy. We'd like to have at least 50 and closer to 100 submissions by the end of the year. Maybe you took a photo of a unique flower, or a turtle crossing the road. Perhaps you snuck up on a bear cub, or ate a slice of watermelon sitting on a rock. Any memory that you think helps represent your experience and your love of the Soque Watershed is a valid submission. For instance, when I hold Whiskey my dog over the top of a stream he begins to paddle his feet before he ever hits the water.
All Submissions will receive a free SOQUE RIVER MAP. We ask that you come by our office to pick those up. The best submissions will receive a cash prize and print of John Kollock's Soque River Days painting.
You may also enjoy reading about our Bike Journey across all the watersheds in the Soque. You can find these in the newspaper and on our Blog Site.
Check it out today and make a submission. At the completion we hope to produce a book that describes how our community experiences the Soque Watershed! http://soqueriverdays.blogspot.com/p/what-is-soquee-river-days.html 4) Welcome Scarlett Fuller as our Special Projects Assistant
We are thrilled to welcome back Scarlett Fuller (one of our most dynamic board members in recent years) back as our Special Projects Assistant at the SRWA.
Scarlett and her husband Nathan spent most of 2013-2014 in Montana but have returned to North Georgia to our good fortune. Scarlett will be helping the SRWA with our Soquee River Days project for the remainder of the year as well as mapping out many of the sub-basin features of the watershed helping to create an identity for every n00k and cranny of the Soque Watershed.
Please introduce yourself to her, and invite her out to see your part of the watershed. We want her to meet as many people as possible as she becomes an expert. 4) 2014 Georgia Mountains Farm Tour - Huge Success
Our Farm Tour for 2014 was a giant success. We had between 425 - 500 individuals attend the event this year which was essentially a doubling in size. The tour has rapidly become the dominant agritourism event for the Northeast Georgia Region drawing families from all over the state of Georgia to see what Local Food Farms look like here in our beautiful neck of the woods.
We should all be proud of the great FARMERS who make this event possible and the great culture and great food that they are producing. Plan on coming next year!
To help inspire you take a look at this great video by Andrew Linker.
5) Locally Grown Expansion to Gainesville - highest sales ever And strongly related to the FARM TOUR event, the 40 or so farms and food producers with the Northeast Georgia Locally Grown online farmers market just expanded the market to a new location in Gainesville, GA on June 11th. The new pickup location is averaging over 20 customers per week and sales have essentially doubled from this time last year! Wow!
Looks like local food from sustainable mountain farms is popular and getting more popular.
To order some yourself check out the website.
Justin Ellis Executive Director Soque River Watershed Association 706-754-9382
Donations to the Soque River Watershed Association (SRWA) are tax deductible.
You can JOIN the SRWA or make a Donation by clicking HERE |
