Thank you for being a great supporter and donor to Pelican Island Audubon and our Trees for Life/Plants for Birds project. With your generous support, we just planted our 5th Florida Native Plant Education and Demonstration Garden at the Vero Beach Main Post Office on 13th Ave! The other four Education and Demonstration Gardens are at the entrances to the Indian River County Administration Building A, United Against Poverty, Beach Post Office, and Vero Beach Elementary School.
Trevor Loomis, President and Chief Executive Officer of Indian River Habitat for Humanity has asked us to provide ALL and only native trees and plants around a new 14 house development in Gifford called Gifford Gardens (see drawing above). The design includes over 1,500 trees, shrubs and plants that I estimate will cost over $75,000. This project will inspire the 14 families to put natives in their yards too. The Neighbors and fellow citizens who will see and read about it will be inspired and want to plant natives in their yards too.
Native planted yards help save our birds, butterflies, and bees. Planting natives will also reduce the amount of drinking water going on our Florida yards (64%, 88% in the summer) which depletes our aquifer of pure drinking water. In the US, 800 million gallons of gas are spent for lawn-care equipment that emits 41 billion pounds of CO2 and 13 billion pounds of toxic, carcinogenic air pollutants heating our planet. Lawn care also uses 100 million pounds of toxic lawn chemicals & fertilizers at an annual cost of $45 billion. These fertilizers and chemicals are going into our rivers, streams, and the Indian River Lagoon killing seagrasses and fishes, reducing food for manatees, and other marine animals.
We would appreciate any donation you can give towards this PIAS/Habitat For Humanity project, the largest garden landscaping we have done so far. Since we started our Trees for Life/Plants for Birds project, we have distributed almost 30,000 native trees and plants, see where:https://pelicanislandaudubon.org/trees-for-life-plants-for-birds/
Thank you so much for you generosity for this major project.
Go Native!
Richard H. Baker, Ph.D.
Board Chair, Pelican Island Audubon Society
Pelican Island Audubon Society is a 501(c)(3) organization and our Tax Identification Number is 59-6197617.