Great Winter Volunteer Opportunities Are Available at Discovery Park
2007 Discovery Park Volunteer Open House
Saturday, January 13, 1 to 3 p.m.
Interested in making a difference? Kick off the new year right by exploring the possibility of becoming a volunteer at Discovery Park. Join us for our annual open house. Meet current volunteers and find the perfect niche for your skills.
Vacant Volunteer Positions:
Docent Program 2007
Interested in learning more about the flora and fauna of the Puget Sound region? Do you love sharing nature with others? Then you might be the perfect candidate for the Discovery Park docent program. Docents (volunteer naturalists) participate in 12 weeks of training and commit at least one year to volunteering at Discovery Park. Responsibilities include everything from helping children catch a tadpole for the first time to teaching the public the important role spiders play in the world. Docents help park visitors of all ages discover the wonders of nature. They do this by leading programs for school groups, teaching interpretive programs on the weekends, and staffing hands-on discovery stations in the busier areas of the park. Docents' backgrounds are as varied as the people they teach - the common thread is their desire to share nature with park visitors.
Applications are due February 1, 2007, and training starts February 21.
For more information, please call Dan Moore, the docent coordinator, at 206-386-4231, or e-mail him at dan.moore@seattle.gov
Habitat Restoration "Adopt-an-Area" Program
The purpose of Discovery Park's "Adopt-an-Area" program is to improve habitat for wildlife in the park's 550 acres. Volunteers perform a number of tasks, including removal of invasive plants, beach cleanups, and planting trees. We match people their interests and time commitments. You can volunteer as an individual or as a group.
For more information, please call Dorothy Guernsey, the "Adopt-an-Area" supervisor, at 206-386-4295, or e-mail her at dorothy.guernsey@seattle.gov.
•Early learning: $29 million for pre-kindergarten programs and $9 million to launch a rating system for state-paid child care providers, based on how well they teach children. Also: $86 million to boost state child care payments 10 percent and to support health care benefits for those child care workers.
•Health care: $31 million to provide state-paid health insurance for an additional 32,000 children, which would bring the state’s covered total to 624,000 Washington kids. Plus millions more to boost reimbursement for pediatricians treating kids under the Medicaid program and for childhood immunizations
•Higher education: $60 million to create 3,300 new high-demand slots at colleges, including a new program to train doctoral students in nursing as well as first-year medical- and dental students in Spokane. Another $20 million to allow the state to freeze tuition at community and technical colleges for two years, 5 percent to 7 percent tuition-hike caps at four-year schools and nearly $400 million for raises and benefits for faculty and staff, particularly part-time community college faculty.
•Crime: $37 million to build 476 more prison beds and $25 million to improve education, job training and release preparation for prison inmates, so that there is less chance of returning to crime when they get out of prison.
•Mental health: $20 million to expand mental health treatment, including higher payments for drug and alcohol treatment. Also: more than $100 million for more homes for developmentally disabled people.
•Foster children: $23 million for monthly caseworker visits to monitor the health of foster children, plus higher reimbursement for foster parents and more money for mental health treatment of foster kids. Gregoire also wants to cast a wider net for extended family members to care for children who cannot safely remain in their parents’ home.
•Human services: $140 million for more low-income housing, $103 million for higher wages for home care workers.
•State worker pay: $1.5 billion in raises. Most state workers would get a 2 percent raise in 2008 and a 3.2 percent raise the following year. For some, the increase would be more: state troopers’ salaries would rise 4 percent a year, and most state nurses would get an extra 17.5 percent increase. Prison guards and others in hard-to-fill jobs would also receive “significant pay increases.”
•Environment: $220 million for Puget Sound cleanup.
•A $4.4 million pilot project “so that the election of judges can be free from money influence, real or perceived.”
•Rainy Day Fund: With the state standing to collect nearly $2 billion more than expected in taxes and other revenue through the end of 2009, Gregoire wants to set up a hard-to-tap emergency account for hard times. She’s start with a $262 million down payment over two years.
•Parks: Nearly $100 million to fix up water supplies, bathrooms, showers, stormwater systems and other facilities at state parks. Also $70 million to develop sites for wildlife conservation and outdoor recreation.
•Transportation: Billions of dollars for major projects, including four new ferries, replacing Seattle’s Alaskan Way Viaduct and State Route 520 Floating Bridge, North Spokane Corridor, bridges and Snoqualmie Pass.
