Protecting and restoring the Mystic River watershed is a team sport—and we are very lucky to have great volunteers and partners. Every year, MyRWA recognizes some of our great volunteers and partners for their work. Please join us in thanking these partners and volunteers for caring so deeply for our local environment and all the people who live here.
Ripple Award: GreenRoots
GreenRoots staff and Eco-youth receive the Ripple Award at MyRWA’s Annual Meeting. PC: David Mussina
The Ripple Award celebrates an individual or organization whose work with us ripples out and impacts the broader community. The Ripple Award winner this year is GreenRoots.
You would be hard-pressed to meet someone in the environmental community in the Boston-Metro area who does not know of and appreciate the work of GreenRoots, Eco-youth and their founder and Executive Director, Roseann Bongioavanni. GreenRoots is a community-based organization dedicated to improving and enhancing the urban environment and public health in Chelsea and surrounding communities. They do so through deep community engagement and empowerment, youth leadership and implementation of innovative projects and campaigns. Among the issues they work on are access to the waterfront, urban heat, and affordable access to clean energy. When COVID hit, it hit Chelsea the hardest — and GreenRoots was there — developing a campaign with partners to provide financial relief, food relief and promote vaccination. Most recently, they’ve led a campaign to secure a waterfront site, the 17-acre Forbes property, for climate resiliency, affordable housing and public housing.
We are grateful to learn from the work of GreenRoots and are incredibly proud to have GreenRoots as a partner in our work.
Volunteers of the Year: Tiantong Wang & Charlie McCabe
This year, we recognized two individuals as our 2022 volunteers of the year for their outstanding contributions to improving the Mystic River watershed.
TianTong volunteering in the Malden community. PC: Marissa Zampino
TianTong Wang—TianTong is a new volunteer with us this year and part of the first cohort in our River Rep outreach volunteer program. This past summer, TianTong did 12 hours of outreach on behalf of our organization, expressing how much he enjoys learning while explaining things to others. On top of being an outstanding River Rep, TianTong also volunteered to remove invasive bittersweet and water chestnut. Thank you TianTong for all that you have done for the Mystic this year!
Charlie helping to lead a bittersweet removal event. PC: Daria Clark
Charlie McCabe—Charlie has been involved with MyRWA for many years and is doing amazing work as a consultant for parks, trails, and public space projects around the country. He has an amazing wealth of knowledge and enthusiasm about removing invasive species. We have been lucky to have Charlie as a thought-partner and volunteer event leader for our invasive species program and we are so grateful for the amount of energy and time he pours into his local environment.
Water Quality Monitors
We are incredibly grateful to all our water quality volunteers, for all the work they do every year. We would not know what we know about the Mystic system without their work. At this year’s annual meeting we especially recognized three monitors who happen to be celebrating milestone anniversaries this year. Pete Howard has been sampling at the top of the Mystic River in Arlington for 15 years, often riding his bike in all weather, bringing scientific training to the task. Matt Shuman and Kate Adams have been sampling on the Mystic and Malden Rivers for 20 (!) years each. Matt manages stormwater infrastructure among other things in the City of Watertown, and Kate works for the state department of public health. Each person’s professional background echoes the goals of water quality program in a beautiful way: using science to identify causes of pollution, implement infrastructure improvements, all with the aim of protecting human—and ecosystem—health. Congratulations to Pete, Matt, and Kate, and thanks to all our monitors!
Pete Howard (15 years)
Matt Shuman (20 years)
Kate Adams (20 years)
