“Where Our Wild Things Are” Habitat Tour Team kicks off this Saturday’s tour

By the WOWTA Team

Shoreline’s 1st Annual “Where Our Wild Things Are” Habitat Tour will be Saturday, July 10 from 10 am - 4 pm. There will be mini-learning experiences at each of the seven habitats on the tour, which are designed to demonstrate how easy and fun it is to create a beautiful sanctuary for wildlife in your own yard.

The tour is free of charge, open to the public and begins at Calvin Presbyterian Church, 18826 3rd Ave NW, Shoreline 98177, where maps and directions for the tour will be available. For more information, visit WOWTA’s website or search WOWTA on Facebook.

Since this is the final article before the tour takes place, the WOWTA Team that organized this tour wanted to share a few thoughts with you about what it’s meant to work together on this special event:

          It's hard for us to believe that in just a few days anyone interested in learning more about different types of wildlife habitats will have the chance to talk with neighbors and local experts on just about any aspect of habitat creation imaginable. 

          The WOWTA Habitat Tour has been over a year in the making and worked on intensely by our full team for the past six months. For those of us who volunteered to pull this inaugural tour together, these past six months have been like a dream come true. Our shared passion for seeing conventional suburban landscapes (single-layered, monoculture, resource-thirsty, chemical dependent, high-maintenance lawn) turned into multi-layered, multi-species, drought tolerant, wildlife and earth friendly habitat brought us together in this endeavor. 

          Our commitment to bringing fun, play and ease to the process of creating this tour has made these months of planning and work feel joyful. We have all volunteered for various projects and programs in the past, and typically, there’s no getting around the fact that some part of the experience includes completing more work than you ever bargained for, using up more hours than you ever signed up for, causing more headaches than you ever wished for…but collaborating with this team to put together Shoreline’s 1st Annual WOWTA Habitat Tour has been so much fun! We laughed and bonded through every planning meeting. 

          Not only are we leaving a legacy of an amazing tour for a great cause, but we each have a whole new group of special friends in our community. Isn’t that what volunteer experience should look like? We believe that our special team dynamic has likewise spilled over into the greater Shoreline community. Everyone we’ve told about our habitat tour has eagerly embraced it and wanted to participate. 

          Thank you to the residents, officials and businesses of Shoreline, Edmonds, Lake Forest Park and Seattle for all your support. We encourage you all to come out and join us this Saturday - and every year - for this historic and exciting event.

The WOWTA Team: Afia Menke, Ann Erickson, Barbara Guthrie, Boni Biery, Christine Southwick, Jennifer Rotermund, Judy Griesel, Krista Tenney, Loren Alexanian, Nan Skinner