Posted on Oct 18, 2005

The Salinas City Council will honor CSUMB's Return of the Natives Restoration Education Project at a council meeting on Oct. 18, as part of Make a Difference Day.

The Return of the Natives (RON) project is a community- and school-based environmental education program dedicated to involving students (kindergarten through university) in habitat restoration and service learning projects in the schoolyard and the community.

The project's environmental goal is to protect the waters of the Monterey Bay through restoration of the waterways and the lands draining in the bay; its social goal is to bring people and nature together on restoration and garden projects in the watersheds of the Monterey Bay from the Monterey Peninsula to North Monterey County and from Salinas to San Ardo.

RON has involved students of all ages in creek restoration, tree planting and clearing invasive weeds in Salinas since 1994. "We are working for nature and for open space," said Laura Lee Lienk, director of the project. "We view ourselves as being a part of the solution for violence, too."

The program will be honored at 4 p.m. on Oct. 18 in the council chambers.

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