Thank you to everyone who volunteered at our first forest restoration event of 2017! This was also our groundbreaking event at the new 242nd St. Restoration Site on North Creek Forest's northwestern border.

In only a few hours, we cleared about 10 cubic yards of invasive Himalayan blackberry, putting most cuttings into yard waste bins generously provided by the neighbors on 242nd St., and created an in-field compost pile for the leftover cuttings. We also moved 10 cubic yards of mulch off of the street to within the restoration site's boundaries. Lastly, we removed numerous pieces of garbage from North Creek Forest, ranging from sign posts to an old propane tank! 

Removing the invasive plants made room for our future native plants, and the mulch will be spread at future forest restoration events to reduce erosion and provide nutrients to the site's soils.

We'd also like to give a special thank-you to Bartlett Tree Expert's Kenmore office and Bothell's Boy Scout Troop 420 for donating the day's mulch from chipped up Christmas trees! They provided the same service last year, and we hope to continue the tradition in 2018!

Interested in volunteering again? Please visit our Website, Facebook, or VolunteerMatch pages for future volunteer opportunities.

You can find more event photos on our Flickr page!

We are so excited to unveil Friends of North Creek Forest's new logo! At the same time, changing logos is never an easy process, and we do not want to present the new logo without some context for those who are fond of the original logo. Neither the decision to update the logo, nor the process we undertook, were taken lightly. The original logo, while being attractive to the eye for many, was a very complex image that was challenging to reproduce in a cost effective way in multiple formats and scales. 

Friends' Board of Directors voted in summer 2015 to update the logo, and we received an in-kind rebranding grant from graphic design company, Causality, to design a new logo at a reduced cost.

The board and logo redesign subcommittee (made up of board and nonboard members) had numerous conversations about the elements of the original logo to keep. We wanted the logo to represent the role of the forest in the watershed and the interconnectedness between the forest, widlife, and nearby waterways. We also wanted to retain a salmon and a woodpecker from the original design.

The board reviewed a number of design concepts, and the logo redesign subcommittee helped guide Causality to the end product. We hope you agree that it maintains the original values and priorities of the organization, while simplifying the design and color palette.

Thank you for another tremendous year of volunteering in North Creek Forest! Our final numbers include 3,243 volunteer hours contributed by 558 individual volunteers for 2016. During that time, we planted about 400 native plants, spread almost 110 cubic yards of mulch, and removed about 40 cubic yards of invasive plants.

Volunteers came from local companies, neighborhoods, schools, and community based groups.

For local companies, we'd like to thank Bothell Boeing, Starbucks, and Disney Store employees, as well as Bartlett Tree Experts, Northwest Arboriculture, and Go Natives! Nursery for donating plants, mulch, and employee time.

Students from UW Bothell, Cascadia College, Edmonds Community College, Bellevue College, Soundview International Baccalaureate School,  Woodinville High School, Bothell High School, Woodinville Montessori, and Inglemoor High School all volunteered to help protect North Creek Forest.

Lastly, thank you to all of the community organizations including the Girl, Cub, and Boy Scouts, Whale Scout, and the Northshore YMCA for their volunteer time as well.