Effie Yeaw Nature Center

Community programs: Nature education programs are designed to provide non-school opportunities, such as summer and holiday Nature camps, family programs, and learning from experts through adult Nature workshops, lectures and field trips. Groups such as scouts, boys and girls clubs and meet-up groups bring large numbers of young people on weekends, holidays and summers. Major events including 'naturefest' (produced in cooperation with twenty four additional participating organizations) and bird & breakfast combine a Nature, in collaboration with the sacramento audubon society, focus with hands on activities. Adult only classes are offered almost every month with topics ranging from beginning birdwatching to Natural History of rattlesnakes. A semi-annual university of California naturalist certification program is operated by the Effie Yeaw Nature Center. All programs have minimal fees to encourage participation. Scholarships are also available from previously received restricted contributions.

The Effie Yeaw Nature Center is open six days a week and offering free or low-cost public programs every weekend, the Nature Center is an educational resource accessible to all community members. In response to the COVID pandemic, in 2021/22 we were forced to close the doors to our Nature Center Museum and building for many months, and quickly transitioned our education programs to a virtual platform. Programs that were held in person, when safe to do so, were conducted outside and registration was limited to allow for social distancing. Our family-oriented education program Owl-O-Ween, and nature camps for children offered our community encounters with live animals, hikes in the preserve, crafts and games. Our adult education programs, the Nature of Things speaker series and the California Naturalist Certification program, continued to expand our communitys knowledge of the natural world - in virtual, socially distanced formats. These efforts, along with and increased social media presence and the free access to our nature preserve and hiking trails, allowed us to continue to meet our mission and serve our community.

The Nature Center offers customized educational science and cultural programs to local schools both on site at the center and nature preserve, and in school classrooms for grades K through 8.In total, Effie Yeaw Nature Center, a community outreach initiative of American River Natural History Association served 66,872 patrons/visitors.VOLUNTEERS: This fiscal year 516 volunteers contributed their time, talents, and skills to the Effie Yeaw Nature Center for a combined total of 14,373 hours! Volunteers serve in a variety of roles from support of daily operations, expanding our reach and audiences served, schools and children's docents, preservation and restoration of the nature study area, and so much more. EDUCATION/OUTREACH: 51 Nature Camps. 589 children engaged in topics ranging from natures engineers to space to kayaking!519 K-12 School Programs. Our school programs reached 15,800 children, including 1,766 kids that through our Urban Nature Program, received 70 free Effie Yeaw Nature Center School programs.264 Customized Educational Programs. 14,302 members of the public were provided education at community events such as the Reptile Expo and adult-focused programs including Young at Heart, Nature of Things, and the UC California Naturalist program.35, 170 Museum Patrons visited the Effie Yeaw Nature Center's main building where they were able to have close-up encounters with animal ambassadors and learn natural and cultural history of the Lower American River in our Museum.MARKETING/SOCIAL MEDIA:Combined social media reaches/visits were 48,694 (website, Facebook, Instagram, eNewsletter)"