SAVE THE DATE – The Great Oyster Point Runoff
On November 5th, Charleston Waterkeeper will host “The Great Oyster Point Runoff” on the Rutledge Street Pond (** a prize for the first person to leave the current name of this waterway in the comment section below **) and throughout the Colonial Common. Clueless as to where these names are coming from and what we’ll be doing this 5th day of November? Let us help to shed some light…
Over the next year, five Waterkeeper programs will be hosting events throughout the nation as part of the Waterkeeper Alliance SPLASH Event Series, presented nationally by Toyota in partnership with KEEN. The series kicked off this past weekend with a 4-mile paddle, hosted by Hackensack Riverkeeper. The goal of the entire SPLASH Event Series is to encourage the public and clean water enthusiasts nationwide to discover, learn about, and celebrate the many ways to have fun on, in, or by the water, all while participating in educational exhibits, gear demonstrations, instructional workshops, and coastal clean-ups. The event also aims to educate local residents about stormwater runoff, the most common cause of water pollution throughout the nation.
Celebration of our waterways is a key component of what we do at Charleston Waterkeeper. After all, if we weren’t all so passionate about using our waterways, we wouldn’t nearly be as excited about protecting them!
Without much surprise, Charleston is unarguably one of the greatest cities on the planet (if not *the*). Outside Magazine even thinks so. What makes it so special? The people, the architecture, the beauty… But most importantly, it’s waterways!
For this reason, Charleston Waterkeeper was selected to be one of the five hosts to organize a SPLASH Series Event. And so, without further adieu, we’re excited to present to you “The Great Oyster Point Runoff“! The Great Oyster Point Runoff will transform a body of water that is, more often than not, reserved for visual admirers and not one with which Lowcountry citizens actively and directly engage (with certain exceptions… most notably, the dedicated anglers that commit to it as their favorite fishing hole). We want to change that…
For one day (11.5.11 from 11AM-4PM), we will transform Rutledge Street Pond into a fun, festive site for kayakers, canoers, home-made boat enthusiasts, and water-lovers galore. There will be water activities, land-based water workshops and demos, clubs and organizations on hand to talk about fun ways to get on, in, and around the water, local food, local beer, live music, and hundreds of passionate water-lovers celebrating our fundamental right to clean water. The main display will be a boat parade around Colonial Lake. We’ll be opening registration for the parade shortly and invite Charlestonians, young and old, to paddle around this great body of water, dressed in costumes that reveal your utter appreciation for this amazing natural resource. Prizes will be awarded for a variety of categories, and if you’re not participating in the parade, there will be plenty of opportunity to get on the water afterwards.
The event is FREE and open to the public. There will be a registration fee for boaters participating in the parade. All funds raised will be used to support our water quality monitoring program.
Stay tuned to the event website – http://oysterpoint.org – as we update it with more and more details. Registration will open shortly, but in the meantime, make sure to RSVP on Facebook.
If you’re interested in becoming a local sponsor, shoot us an email.
For our official announcement, check out the release here. We hope you like it!
