Dear Friend,

This month the Audubon Maryland-DC enewsletter features Patterson Park Audubon Center in Baltimore, MD. Patterson Park is a 155-acre city-owned public park which is the natural centerpiece of the neighborhood communities that surround it. Audubon Maryland-DC has been providing hands-on science education programs for the students and schools within walking distance of the park since 2002. To learn more visit  http://pattersonpark.audubon.org 

Happy Birding!  

P.S. November is a great time for us to say THANK YOU! Your support to Audubon Maryland-DC and our centers helps us collectively connect more than 25,000 people each year with the natural world that surrounds us!  As you consider the multitude of worthy causes to support this season, please keep us in mind!

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Patterson Park Audubon Center News

The staff of the Patterson Park Audubon Center has had a fun-filled late summer and fall season teaching pre-K through third grade programs with students from six schools within walking distance of the park, three different weekly after-school programs, family programs like pumpkin carving, the ever popular Tiny Tot Safari programs and two TogetherGreen Volunteer Days.  Our mission is to connect youth, families, and adults to nature using Patterson Park as our classroom, and we do this in a variety of ways while connecting with the communities, schools and other non-profits in the neighborhood. 

In October we hosted two different TogetherGreen Volunteer Days. The TogetherGreen initiative  is an innovative Audubon program funded by Toyota that aims to inspire people everywhere to improve the health of the environment.   On Saturday, October 4^th we hosted Youth Volunteer Day with the Friends of Patterson Park.  A group of neighborhood youth joined us in the park and we were fortunate to have a group of graduate students from Johns Hopkins University join us as mentors for the youth.  This project was a huge success and both the youth and adults helped beautify the recently planted butterfly garden on the west side of the Boat Lake by weeding and mulching the garden. 

Just ten days after Youth Volunteer Day, PPAC hosted a full day of volunteering as part of the Patterson Park Public Charter School 's school-wide volunteer day, which was also funded by TogetherGreen.   Over 150 students throughout the day helped us maintain the wetland garden in the park that many of them helped plant in June.  We spent the first half of the day weeding, and then we were able to mulch and plant 500 native perennial plants in the garden, also planting some in the butterfly garden.  The day was a wonderful opportunity for the students of the PPPCS to be true stewards of the park.  There was even some wildlife excitement as two snakes, a baby turtle, and a mouse was found scurrying through the garden!  T he students, staff, and administration of the PPPCS helped to make this day happen, along with Friends of Patterson Park for loaning many tools, gloves, tables, and water coolers, and the Herring Run Watershed Association who generously lent us their watering truck.   Coming soon on the TogetherGreen Website will be a video and pictures highlighting the day. 

Please join the Patterson Park Audubon Center during our public programs, bird walks or to volunteer for more TogetherGreen Volunteer Days in the spring.  Please check our website at http://pattersonpark.audubon.org. If you haven't explored Patterson Park , you will be pleasantly surprised at the wildlife and nature that you can find right in the middle of Baltimore City !