2024 Year in Review
2024 was a remarkable year for our mission of restoring the natural areas of Wissahickon Valley Park. Thanks to your support, we achieved record-breaking milestones that would have been impossible without our dedicated community of volunteers and donors. Read more >
Thank You Ian, Welcome Andrew
WRV would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to Ian Schramfield (left) who served on WRV’s board since 2020 and has moved away. At the same time, we are thrilled to welcome Andrew Conboy, a certified arborist and all around great guy. Read more >
Restoring Balance: Volunteers Tackle Invasive Species Near Pachella Field
Thanks to the work of both human and plant “volunteers,” we are starting to see signs of returning ecological balance in our restoration area at Pachella field. Read all about it >
Sam Ozer Project Featured in Weavers Way Shuttle
Weavers Way Coop recently featured WRV’s Sam Ozer Project in their monthly newspaper The Shuttle…. Read all about it >>>
Wineberry: An Invasive Plant That’s Also Delicious!
Wineberries are invasive plants that we remove from the Wissahickon whenever we can. In this guest blog post, one of our Restoration Stewards makes the case for picking the berries before removing the plant. Read how our own Neva Guido uses wineberries to make pies, jams, cordials, and ‘funfetti’ cake… Read more >>>
Growing Forest Stewards in the WRV Ecological Restoration Leadership Program
To encourage young people to get involved in urban ecology, WRV has launched the Ecological Restoration Leadership Program, giving high school students the opportunity to become “forest stewards.” Read more >
Potentially Problematic Plants in the Wissahickon
WRV launched a project aimed at tracking new problematic plants of the Wissahickon. The purpose is to get a handle on non-natives that seem to have sprung up only recently, and to determine whether or not these species might establish themselves at the risk of native plant population. Read more >
Tracking 20 Years of Data
Since 1997 WRV has planted over 4,000 trees and shrubs. In order to track the data related to these restoration efforts, we have recently begun tagging the trees that we plant, as well as attempting to locate and tag trees we planted in the past. Read more >
The Sam Ozer Memorial Project
In October 2020 volunteers began to clear invasive plants from a site along the trail between Historic Rittenhousetown and Blue Bell. Now, in an area that had once been blanketed by a dense monoculture of Japanese knotweed, a small forest – Sam’s Forest – is beginning to grow. Read more >
WRV Statement in Support of Black Lives Matter
WRV supports the goals of the Black Lives Matter movement to end violence against Black people and to build a society “where every Black person has the social, economic, and political power to thrive.” That is only possible when Black people can live without fear of violence… Read more >>>
Restoring the Wissahickon One Tree at a Time
We aren’t going to let the constraints of social distancing in this age of COVID-19 stop us from continuing our mission. We are venturing into the Wissahickon in one-person crews to plant trees and remove invasive plants, as well as gathering data and checking on previous restoration projects from years past… Read more >>>
Thank you for reading! Please consider supporting our work. Your donation will help keep the Wissahickon green and diverse, and all donations are Tax deductible.