Category: Adventure Playground

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Parks dynamo Patty Donald retires June 2017

If you’ve helped out at a shoreline cleanup, seen the Berkeley Marina’s colorful Kite Festival, or if someone in your family became fascinated with science and nature at Berkeley’s Marina Experience programs, it’s because of Patty Donald, naturalist and recreation coordinator at the Berkeley Marina’s Shorebird Park and Adventure Playground. A citizen arm, Friends of Shorebird Nature Center, is a valued BPFP partner.

Beach at Shorebird ParkOne of Berkeley’s most creative and influential environmentalists, Patty retires this month after more than 30 years “growing” Berkeley Parks programs.

Daughter of a Gold Rush family, Patty grew up in Berkeley. She earned a degree in parks and natural-resource management and interpretation just as California’s Proposition 13 was slashing property-tax funds for such programs. After part- and full-time stints including teaching science at Cragmont School (her “alma mater”) and working for Berkeley Parks and at the East Bay Regional Parks’ Crab Cove Nature Center, she approached Berkeley with an idea:

“I said I’d set up a nature program here. They said OK. So I did.” Continue reading “Parks dynamo Patty Donald retires June 2017”

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UC Berkeley funding for BPFP “Greening Berkeley” partners

For the third year in a row, BPFP’s “Greening Berkeley Hands On” partnership has been awarded a Chancellor’s Community Partnership Fund grant by UC Berkeley. This year’s award of $24,000 will help BPFP affiliates carry out a wide variety of hands-on environmental projects. The grant pays for both materials and a UC student intern, who organized student volunteering through CalCorps, UC’s public-service arm.

Projects in the 2008 grant range from path construction and a solar light for the Santa Fe Right of Way, projects of Berkeley Path Wanderers, to tools and gloves for the city’s 14 public-school gardens, through Friends of School Gardens. The community-built Schoolhouse Creek Common will install chess tables and a bench. Nearby, Friends of Westbrae Commons will continue transforming the Ohlone Greenway south of Gilman with native coastal-prairie plants. Friends of Shorebird Park Nature Center will spread fresh sand and build new racks at Adventure Playground, while Aquatic Park EGRET will get upgraded nataive plants and upgraded wheelbarrows. Friends of Five Creeks will be able to install signs on local natural history and plant drought-tolerant natives in a variety of sites, from the Santa Fe Right of Way to Mortar Rock Park.

Aquatic Park EGRET also will partner with Earth Team Environmental Network, Berkeley Community Media, College of Natural Resources, and Berkeley Community Garden to involve local teens in habitat restoration days that teens also will film for showing on local cable TV. This project received a $5000 Chancellors Community Partnership grant.

Join us to carry out these projects! Contact BPFP or the affiliate group you are interested in — click on “Affiliated Groups” at right.

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Volunteer to help with oil spill clean up (Oiled Wildlife Care Network and Baykeeper)

Oil spill mapAs of Saturday, the Oiled Wildlife Care Network has enough volunteers, but check their web site if you are interested: UC Davis: Oiled Wildlife Care Network.

On Friday afternoon, November 9, the tide tubes that connect Berkeley’s Aquatic Park with the SF Bay were closed to minimize intrusion of oil into Aquatic Park. City officials are also concerned with pollution reaching the Marina and other Berkeley aquatic facilities.

More details on the “Cosco Busan” oil spill can be found on the California Department of Fish and Game’s website.

See also SFBaykeeper.org for other volunteer opportunities and updates.

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Adventure Playground Summer Activities

If you have kids, grand kids, neighborhood kids, students- Explore these links and send them down to Berkeley’s Gem, The Adventure Playground
Adventure Playground website
Summer programs begin in the best playground in the Bay area!
Open midweek starting June 18th – Aug 17th and weekends 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Closed when raining.
Come join the fun- Here is the registration form for children 7 yrs and older who “drop in” the Adventure Playground for three hours only without a parent. Pick up is at 4:30. Summer child drop-in registration form. Want to drop your child and his friend off ? Have their parents fill out the form and sign the waiver before you come- No waiver, no drop off. If you signed one in the school year we require a new one filled out for the summer. For detailed summer activities in the playground click on this link.

Marina Adventures Summer Programs in Adventure Playground
Each of the programs listed below are offered on a drop-in basis, from 1-2 hours each day. Sign up in the Adventure Playground on the day of the program, 1/2 hour before it starts. All programs are free. Children under seven years must be accompanied by an adult. NO GROUPS. Limited participants and age restrictions may apply to specific activities. Great fun! Click here for a view of our June Summer program calendar. July will be available online after June28th.
Our fun summer programs offered by Adventure Playground staff are:

  • Free play- all the time! Children can choose to use hammers nails and saws to build and create their own playground. Programs are offered for children not in groups.
  • Fishing Mondays 2:30-4 p.m. and Tuesdays 10:30-12. Limit 15 kids. We provide the drop lines and bait and fish off the Berkeley Pier. All fish or crabs that are caught are released.
  • Creative Building Wednesdays, 2:30-4 p.m. Classes include: tool workshop , building wooden animals, model cities, race cars and more. Pick up our calendar when you come in.
  • Crafts Thursdays 2:30-4 p.m. Classes include making instruments, mobiles, sun prints and more.
  • Special Activities Fridays 2:30-3:30 Join the fun, Mud day, Egg drop, Treasure Hunt , other activities may include cook-outs, wet + wild, bubble festivals, Nature Exploration and more etc..)