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: Latino Outdoors Boston
Latino Outdoors Boston at their Canoe for a Cause event with us in honor of Latino Conservation Week. PC: Daria Clark
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 Latino Outdoors Boston, a local organization that works to connect and create space for the Greater Boston latino community in the outdoors.
Latino Outdoors Boston’s first chapter event was birding with us along the Mystic River at Macdonald Park back in the fall of 2021 — a partnership forged by one of LO Boston’s founders Melanie Gárate who is also a MyRWA alum.
Since that day, their chapter has grown tremendously. With a leadership team of 10 volunteers, LO Boston now engages hundreds of community members a year, bringing them out surfing, biking, camping, rock climbing, and more. A huge highlight of their work for us is our partnership to host free bilingual kayak days with Paddle Boston during the summer. These events have brought over 100 people out paddling on the Mystic River, a new experience for many.
Please join us in celebrating Latino Outdoors Boston in the work they do to increase representation in outdoor recreation, build community, and foster connections between people and the environment.
Volunteer of the Year: Sarah bergman-mccool
Sarah leading our Urban Heat Island activity at the Museum of Science. PC: Ashley McCabe
This year, we recognized Sarah Bergman-McCool as our 2023 Volunteer of the Year for her outstanding contributions to improving the Mystic River watershed.
As an active parent in Woburn, Sarah has supported our work since 2018 in many ways — from leading activities in the classroom to helping organize our database. Sarah is a natural leader and brought her knowledge of the watershed into seven classrooms over the past school year. She’s also tabled at various educational events like the Museum of Science’s Rise Up Boston weekend and is a regular herring monitor at Horn Pond. She’s even helped us clean our database and wrote content about our 50th anniversary. Thank you so much, Sarah, for your inspiration and hard work!
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 two monitors who happen to be celebrating milestone anniversaries this year.
Sara Barbuto has been loyally monitoring on Chelsea River for 15 years now. In recent years, she has been bringing her kids, maybe training the next generation of water quality monitors. Thank you Sara!
Linda Caswell along the Aberjona River
Linda Caswell, a great friend of the organization, has been a water quality monitor for 10 years. She is currently a monitor on the Aberjona River, where she samples in the freshwater section of the Mystic River, and adds to our knowledge about nutrient pollution, bacteria pollution, and road salt pollution in the Mystic River watershed.
Congratulations to Sara and Linda and thanks to all our monitors!
