Mid-Pen Chapter of Charity League teams up with Save The Bay

This post was submitted by Lindsay Farino of Menlo Park, CA, a member of the Mid-Peninsula Chapter of NCL, along with her daughter Julia Farino, a freshman at Menlo-Atherton High School in Atherton, CA.

On Saturday, November 14, a large group of volunteers from The Mid-Peninsula Chapter of the National Charity League (NCL) worked together with the Save the Bay organization to learn about wetlands and plant close to 200 native plants in the Palo Alto Baylands. Mothers and daughters worked alongside one other to help restore the wetlands with blue-eyed grass and marsh-coyote brush saplings. Save the Bay staff member Jill Jacobson explained that the NCL volunteers’ planting in the wetland transition zones, "creates shelter and habitat for animals when water is high in the wetlands."

Save the Bay staffer Megan Kelso said, "Having local volunteer groups like the National Charity League come out to the wetlands creates a sense of stewardship for the participants." She emphasized to the group of mothers and daughters that Save the Bay was founded by women. It is important to remember the three East Bay women, Kay Kerr, Sylvia McLaughlin and Esther Gulick, who founded the Save the San Francisco Bay Association in 1961, to stop the destruction of the bay that they loved so much. Their first volunteer effort mobilized thousands of members to stop the City of Berkeley's plan to double in size by filling in the shallow Bay off-shore.

The NCL teenagers responded enthusiastically to the educational activities that took place prior to planting the wetlands. Emma Peyton, an 8th Grade NCL member from Redwood City said, “I like doing this because I am doing some good for the community.” Menlo Park 8th-grader Nora Lewis added, “Doing NCL (itself) gets me closer to my Mom. It gets us to bond together.” The National Charity League (NCL) teaches young women to be confident that they can make a difference in their own communities both as young women and throughout their adult lives.

The Mid-Peninsula Chapter of the National Charity League is made up of mothers and teenage daughters from Menlo Park, Atherton, Redwood City, Woodside, Portola Valley, Belmont and San Carlos. The purpose of NCL is to initiate and promote charitable endeavors in which mothers and daughters work together. Other philanthropies currently supported by the NCL Mid-Peninsula Chapter include the Friends of the Menlo Park Library, My New Red Shoes, Shelter Network’s Haven House and Redwood Family House, American Cancer Society (including the Menlo Park Discovery Shop), Family & Children Services, Art in Action and Rebuilding Together Peninsula. For more information, visit www.nclmidpen.org.