County boosts support to Friends of Trail

Published 2:21 pm Thursday, October 2, 2008

NORTH BEND — This year, Wade Holden, president of

the North Bend-based Friends of the Trail, may be a little busier

than normal.

That’s because his non-profit organization received

$50,000 from the King County Water Quality Block Grant Fund after

Metropolitan King County Council members approved the 2001

budget. Also known as the WaterWorks Program, the

grant fund allocates dollars to projects that protect or improve local

waterways.

The WaterWorks Program was in danger of losing its funding

in December as council members and King County Executive

Ron Sims’s office worked to piece together a budget for the

coming year. With the additional money, Holden said he wants to teach

local students the importance of taking care of the environment.

“All the council members seem to appreciate what we

do,” Holden said. “If it wasn’t for

them, we wouldn’t be here.”

He said he wants to target seventh- and eighth-graders in

his educational efforts, and the message will be simple.

“One of the things I would like to do is an overall program

that needs to be associated just with the difference between right

and wrong _ it’s not a question of a healthy ecosystem. I think

there are ways for that to be accomplished without being

overbearing.”

Now in its fifth year, Holden and other Friends of the Trail

stewards can often be found picking up trash, old tires and empty

ammunition shells from alongside local roads and streams. While

the group is often associated with doing cleanup work along

the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River, it has lent its services

to areas in Pierce and Snohomish counties, and another project

is set to begin in Kittitas County.

Last year, as part of an overall public-awareness

campaign, Holden designed posters aimed at specific groups that affect

natural areas, including those who use them for recreation, gun

owners who practice target shooting and contractors. Since hanging

them in local businesses and at trailheads, Holden said people

are beginning to take notice, and other environmental groups

from across the country have inquired about them.

“I really think we’re starting to make some headway

educating the public,” Holden said. “When you’re out here

fighting these battles every day and you start seeing some results, it’s

very encouraging.”

The Friends of the Trail president also learned recently that

his organization received $2,000 from the county’s Small

Change for a Big Difference Grant. That, in addition to other grants

Friends of the Trail receives, will help the organization’s projects, which

include refurbishing a wrecker that will be used to tow away

abandoned vehicles.

And Friends of the Trail is now a member organization with

Earth Share of Washington, a federation of groups that promotes

environmental education and charitable giving through workplace

giving campaigns.

Holden said the funding is important because Valley

residents look to Friends of the Trail when they see garbage

littering roadways and streams.

“We’ve got a reputation now, and people call us because

they know we can deal with it,” he said.