Habitat and Wildlife Keepers

CONTACT HAWK DIRECTLY AT HAWKNCWF@GMAIL.COM OR CALL 704 814 0877.

Learn how to use worms to turn kitchen scraps into compost for your garden. Participants will build their own vermicompost bin. Materials provided including worms! $15 per bin and you must preregister by sending an email to HAWKNCWF@gmail.com. Observers welcome for free if you just want to learn but not build a bin.

HAWK in the Charlotte Observer

Wildlife chapter has plenty of interest, and influence, too
Matthews-based HAWK has made its mark on conservation and nature in its 2 years.
Posted: Sunday, Sep. 07, 2008

Matthews-based Habitat and Wildlife Keepers (HAWK), a local chapter of the N.C. Wildlife Federation, has done amazing things over the past two years.

The group was started in 2006 by Carol Buie-Jackson and several conservation-minded folks. It was the first local chapter in the state. There are now eight local chapters, with two more on the way.

Buie-Jackson says she's still amazed by the interest in the group.

“Two years ago, we were afraid no one would come to our first meeting,” she said. “We had 80 in attendance. That showed us two things. First, a lot of people out there are concerned about the environment and want to know how to make a difference. Secondly, they want a place where they can meet like-minded people and share ideas. HAWK is that place.”

HAWK's fingerprints are evident on a number of nature and conservation projects around town.

It has installed and maintained bird feeders, birdhouses and gardens at Squirrel Lake Park. For the past two years, it has partnered with the Town of Matthews for Earth Day festivals.

It has created a Habitat Garden at an area retirement center, and has lobbied the town board on occasions when conservation causes were up for a vote.

It has assisted in the rehabilitation of two hawks – one adult bird found injured on the side of the road and a baby bird that had fallen out of its nest. Both birds have been successfully returned to the wild.

It has taken field trips to spot birds and identify animals by their tracks, and has assisted with Habitat Steward Training sponsored by the N.C. Wildlife Federation.

It has sold 120 rain barrels, which for every inch of rain, prevent 8,400 gallons of water runoff and conserve 8,400 gallons of water for later use in area gardens.

HAWK also holds monthly meetings, open to the public. It focuses on topics that include native plants, snakes and organic farming.

Members kicked off their third year last Tuesday evening with a program on bats, presented by Scott Bosworth of the state Wildlife Resources Commission.

Far from living up to reputations as bloodsucking, rabies-spreading terrors of the night, the little mammals are an important part of the ecosystem and are especially good at controlling insects, Bosworth explained.

HAWK is planning a fall filled with nature topics including: “Spiders” in October; Composting with worms in November; and “The Story of Stuff” for December, a guide for buying environmentally friendly items with reduced packaging.

Want to know more? Visit www.ncwildlife.ning.com to get information specific to HAWK as well as other local chapters. You also can e-mail Carol Buie-Jackson at gardenhabitat@gmail.com or call her at 704-814-0877.

HAWK Picnic - August '08

More birds have a home, thanks to Venture Crew
Charlotte Observer, July 6, 2008

Boy Scout Venture Crew 174 from Saint Gabriel's Catholic Church has assembled more than 40 bluebird houses to go in and around the Matthews area early next year.

Each house, or at least the pieces, passed through the hands of several generations before being donated to HAWK, Habitat and Wildlife Keepers, last Saturday.

Vince Kerrigan, 75, cut out the pieces for each of the houses, having developed his woodworking skills 30 or so years ago when he was an assistant scoutmaster.

The wood he used was donated by his son and former Boy Scout Kevin Kerrigan, owner of Kerrigan Woodworking in Blowing Rock, N.C.

Once the wood was cut, Vince Kerrigan donated the pieces to St. Gabriel's and the Venture Crew, composed of 24 males and females in grades 9-12, nailed them together.

The houses were designed with a triangular bottom to help out the birds. The unusual shape requires the birds to gather less nesting material and exert less effort when building a nest.

Last Saturday representatives from the Venture Crew met in Matthews' Squirrel Lake Park to donate the houses to HAWK.

HAWK's Carol Buie-Jackson says the birdhouses will be of great benefit to area birds.

“This is huge. These boxes will provide homes for more than 300 birds in and around the Matthews area,” Buie-Jackson said.

They are designed for bluebirds, but she says other birds will likely nest in them as well.

The group will wait until early next year to hang the houses since most birds have finished nesting for the year. Buie-Jackon says late winter/early spring is the time most birds start shopping for real estate looking for a place to build a nest and raise their young.

HAWK will hang several in Squirrel Lake Park, some along Stevens Creek, and some around the Harris Teeter site on U.S. 74.

This isn't the first service project by the Venture Crew. Over the past year they've also held food drives, worked at the St. Gabriel Men's Club Fish Fry, participated in the Matthews Chili-Cookoff, and handed out water at the Thunder Road Marathon.

Most of the youth live in the Matthews/ South Charlotte area and attend Providence or Charlotte Catholic High Schools.

Melinda Johnston writes about people, places, and happenings in the Matthews/Mint Hill area. You may contact her mjohnston@ charlotteobserver.com
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HAWK VP Debbie Foster and her FAITH Habitat were featured in the Charlotte Observer. Read the article below

Green faith: Stewards of creation
By Tamara Park
Special to the Observer
STF
Staff Photographer
Sister Jay McCann and volunteer Debbie Foster have helped to preserve and create a habitat on the property surrounding St. Lukeis Catholic Church in Mint Hill. DANA ROMANOFF - dromanoff@charlotteobserver.com

From a wildlife habitat at St. Luke Catholic Church near Mint Hill, to test-drives of hybrids at Shalom Park, to greenway development near Friendship Missionary Baptist Church, houses of worship are embracing the environment because of their sense of faith.

“Especially over the last four years I've seen a growing interest in the relationship between the environment and faith,” said John Wear, founding director for the Center for the Environment at Catawba College in Salisbury. “More and more people have examined how the two are related and are now beginning to realize that their actions have a profound effect on the earth and the people living on it.”

This surge in interest has led Wear to host the Faith, Spirituality and Environmental Stewardship conference later this month.

“We want to find out who in the area is pursuing environmental issues from the faith community,” Wear said. “And we'd like to see not only the ministers and rabbis attend, but more importantly the congregational lay leaders.”

Several area religious communities are already deeply engaged in environmental efforts.

St. Luke's sprawling natural grounds won a special designation from the N.C. Wildlife Federation, which singles out churches that embrace the environment.

“You can see deer, rabbits ... blue-tail skink, foxes, and even snakes all on our church grounds,” said Debbie Foster, a volunteer gardener at St. Luke.

Foster, who spends evenings and Saturdays tending the gardens, sees her efforts as a spiritual act. “Where did this earth come from?” Foster asks. “As Christians we believe it has come from God, and we desire to be a good steward of it. Caring for wildlife habitats is just the right thing to do.”

Twelve years ago, the grounds at St. Luke began to blossom and bustle with life, thanks in part to a retired nun named Sister Jay McCann, Foster said. After teaching farming in Africa as a missionary, Sister Jay came to St. Luke. She not only brought gardening skills, but “an incredible love of all things living,” Foster said.

Her faithful attention to the church's natural habitat was contagious and became the catalyst for the efforts that continue today.

From Rock Hill to Belmont, environmental stewardship is calling people to churches.

“We need to stop and be still to see the birds and trees. We often walk by the beauty of God and don't notice it,” said the Rev. William Pentis of The Oratory in Rock Hill. For almost 75 years this center for spirituality has invited people to pull away from the commotion of city life and pray in a serene setting.

Miles away, the Rev. Ray Hardy, of Forest Pointe church in Belmont, is challenging his congregation to wear their watch on the opposite hand to remind them to “keep watch over creation.” So far congregants have cleaned up a highway exit as well as landscaped a park, and Hardy plans on ditching his car this summer and biking to work.

For the past three years, the Jewish community of Shalom Park in Charlotte has hosted an environmental fair that spotlights green technology and provides educational opportunities. They've offered hybrid test drives, screened “An Inconvenient Truth” and raised money to help start a recycling program.

“I've seen people engage their faith and passion,” says Rabbi Judy Schindler of Temple Beth-El. A newly formed environmental group worked to make a bar mitzvah “green” and hopes to work with weddings and other events, she said.

Schindler said an ancient text helps guide the temple's efforts. There's a Midrash, (the Jewish legends) on Ecclesiastes that teaches God told Adam after creation: “Everything I made, I created for you. Be careful though that you don't spoil or destroy My world; because if you spoil it, there's nobody after you to fix it.'”

A similar sentiment fuels Myers Park Baptist Church's efforts to reduce energy consumption and cultivate green spaces in the city.

“We believe we are co-creators of God and are called to treat the environment with sacred respect,” says Robin Coira, the Church's executive minister.

For seven years they've had an active EarthKeepers group that's converted a parking lot on Roswell Road into a wildlife habitat and developed a Sunday school curriculum for the church's elementary students focusing on the environment and faith. They've also worked to make the church's buildings and grounds more environmentally friendly.

Committee chair Sonya Dyer said she views her group's work as an act of justice. “Those with the least resources suffer the most from environmental issues. That is true for those in our own country and those in other countries.”

Across town, Friendship Missionary Baptist Church is teaming up with the city to create a sports complex with walking trails and natural spaces in the Beatties Ford Road corridor.

“This is only a start,” said Mary Wilson, the executive director of the Friendship Community Development Corporation. Where there has been blighted neighborhoods and abandoned buildings the corporation is working with the city to extend a greenway through the corridor.

“God has given us this one earth and it is ours to care for it,” she said. “It is very selfish of us not to look at the generations that come behind us.”

Wilson said that it wasn't until her daughter, then in fifth grade, started talking about recycling that she paid attention to environmental issues. “Today my daughter is in medical school; she's seen me come a long way. I began by keeping cloth bags in my car and not buying bottled water and now I'm doing environmental education.”