Glenville Heritage Festival
and Summer Camp
CONTACT: Jerry Tinianow, Audubon Ohio, 614-224-3303, jtinianow@audubon.org.
Audubon Ohio’s “Urban Conservation Crew” Summer Camp Offers Free Introduction to Nature for Children in the Glenville Area of Cleveland
Audubon Ohio, the Ohio program of the National Audubon Society, has opened a free summer camp for neighborhood children at the Rockefeller Park Greenhouse in Cleveland. The camp, known as the “Urban Conservation Crew – Cleveland,” is providing area children with what may be their first prolonged exposure to the birds and plants of their own neighborhood.
The camp opened with 25 registered campers on July 9. It will run through Friday, August 10. Campers will then staff a booth at the annual Glenville Heritage Festival on Saturday, August 11, to show what they have learned about area birds and plants during the summer. Western Cuyahoga Audubon will be on hand for the festival too. Come on down and join us.
First day at summer camp
The campers are children from nearby schools who will be entering grades three, four and five in the fall. The camp operates from 9:00 a.m. to noon four days a week, with a full-day field trip on the fifth day. Field trips go to places like the Holden Arboretum and Mentor Marsh, where the campers can explore landscapes that are wilder than those found around the Greenhouse.
Glenville Heritage Days Festival. Audubon Camp booth.
The Greenhouse itself, however, sits in a natural area that is quite remarkable, given its inner-city location. The Greenhouse, a city-owned facility, is in the heart of the historic Glenville neighborhood on East 88th Street, just north of St. Clair Avenue. It occupies an edge of the Audubon-designated Doan Brook-Dike 14 Important Bird Area, a corridor along Doan Brook that connects the upland Shaker Lakes with the Dike 14 impoundment next to the Cleveland Lakefront State Park. The IBA is one of 64 that Audubon has designated in Ohio because of their significant importance to migratory birds.
During the camp, children learn basic skills of identifying birds of the neighborhood by sight and sound. The location of the camp at the Greenhouse allows the children to learn about plants as well. They find out what plants can be cultivated in their neighborhood and how birds and plants are connected.
The camp is the product of a collaboration between Audubon Ohio and Councilwoman Sabra Pierce Scott, who represents Cleveland’s Ward 8. Campers attend for free, thanks to generous support from the Cleveland Foundation, the Kent H. Smith Charitable Trust, the U.S.D.A. Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the Shaker Lakes Garden Club.