Washington Native Plant Society is recruiting community members from King County, including Redmond, to apply to participate in the free 10-week Native Plant Stewardship Training to be held at Lewis Creek Park in Bellevue.

This extensive training meets Fridays beginning April 16. Volunteer stewards can expect to learn native plant identification; Western Washington ecology; urban forest, riparian and wetland restoration and environmental interpretation. In exchange for the training, stewards volunteer 100 hours in their community, specifically for habitat restoration and native plant education. Since 1996, 454 stewards have graduated from the Native Plant Stewardship Program and volunteered over 82,000 hours of service restoring degraded habitats and providing environmental education on native plants.

Apply today by visiting www.wnps.org to download an application from the stewardship tab, or call WNPS at 206-527-3210. Deadline for applications is March 16. Early applicants will be interviewed March 5, while all others will be interviewed March 19.

This partnership is made possible by funding from the cities of: Redmond, Issaquah, Sammamish, Bellevue, Kirkland (through a King Conservation District Grant) and additional funding support provided by King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks through a Waterworks Grant.

For information about Redmond’s involvement in this program, contact Teresa Kluver at tkluver@redmond.gov or (425) 556-2355.