OWIT members continued to stay busy in November. Douglas County Chapter celebrated Veteran’s Day and participated in their local parade, passing out candy and Coni Fir stickers. They also placed wreaths at their local veteran’s cemetery Saturday December 14th with the Wreaths Across America organization.
In December, the Lane County chapter met for breakfast and had their annual centerpiece-making event at Bauman Tree Farm. The Landing chapter provided a wreath making event at the school of Forestry at Oregon State University, for about 40 students. I hear pizza was served as well and last but not least the Portland chapter held a huge wreath making event and sold Christmas trees at the World Forestry Center. It poured down rain, but they still had over 200 people attend. Guests were able to explore a free virtual reality experience that transported them through a working forest, sawmills, and wildfire response activities, providing an up-close look at sustainable forestry practices across the state.
OWIT’s will hit the ground running January 2nd to plan two big auctions. The first is in Clatsop County on January 16th. The Clatsop chapter joins forces with Clatsop Working Watersheds Cooperative to raise funds for Clatsop High School Natural Resource and CTE Programing. The last two years they were able to provide $140K of funding divided amongst seven local programs. On February 19th statewide OWIT members will meet in Eugene to host our 34th Annual auction that benefits our forest education program, Talk About Trees. The auction is the kickoff event for the Oregon Logging Conference. Several members will stay and manage a booth at the OLC conference, provide school tours for local Lane County elementary students, help with a career day for high school students and provide tree activities for family day on Saturday. A fun, full, weeklong event!
For more information about OWIT and TAT please visit OWIT’s website at www.orwit.org , on Facebook and Instagram.
Diann Washburn
OWIT State Treasurer