"The purpose of the FOAM (Friends of the Arcata Marsh) is to stimulate understanding of the Arcata Marsh Wildlife Sanctuary, it's relationship with Arcata's integrated wastewater treatment system, the surrounding watersheds and bay, and their link with the earth's water cycle. FOAM is a non-profit organization contracted by the City of Arcata to provide this information to the public"
Friends of the Arcata Marsh began in 1989 as a tool for fund-raising and environmental education. It was originally created and run, and still is, by a board of directors. This board is comprised of citizens of the Arcata Community. The first project undertaken by this new board of directors was a fund-raiser for what is now called the "Arcata Marsh Interpretive Center", or AMIC. They succeed in raising approximately $56,000.
Members of the board gave tours of the marsh to interested parties, explaining the intricacies of the wastewater system and how it was integrated into a marsh system. Before too long, however, requests for tours became more and more difficult to meet, and a docent program was born. These docents, volunteers from the Arcata Community, took over the job of leading tours and staffing the AMIC. This left the directors time and energy to oversee the overall operation of FOAM.
In time, FOAM began to detach itself from the City of Arcata, becoming more and more an individual entity. FOAM handled it's own fund-raising, the docent training program, and began to do more than just lead tours of the marsh system. Currently, a large portion of the funding is met by member donations and grants. It is hoped that the AMIC bookstore, located on site, will someday fully support FOAM on it's own. FOAM is also responsible for "Flush with Pride"
The Arcata Marsh Interpretive center, the center point of all FOAM activities and projects, was first opened, at the marsh itself, in May of 1993. At first, due to a limited staff and available funds, the center was only open on weekends for a short time. However, as time passed, it was able to be open on weekdays as well. A wide variety of information about the marsh is housed at the interpretive center. These include the marsh's diverse
As well as provide information through literature, maps, and pictures, FOAM also provides several first hand experiences of the marsh. Every Saturday, FOAM holds a free nature walk, which includes programs on birds and other animals and flora of the marsh, as well as aquaculture project and waste water treatment. The last Saturday of every month, FOAM sponsors, "Up close and downwind" a tour of the tertiary treatment facility.
In addition to these tours, FOAM also tries to plan one special event every month. Examples of these are canoeing the slough, trash pick up days, and "go WILD for wildlife". FOAM also has a barbecue pit and picnic area for those wishing to enjoy the beautiful scenery and atmosphere of the marsh over a meal. The marsh, then, is host to several recreational activities.The Redwood Regional Audubon Society (or RRAS) leads its own nature walk every Saturday morning at 8:30. This is mostly orientated towards bird watching. There are four bird blinds on the marsh, to be used for observation only. Hunting is not permitted at the marsh itself, and anyone found hunting closer than a 100 yards from the marsh proper will be heavily fined and penalized.
FOAM is structured as follows:
Board of Directors---->Adminstrative Coordinator---->Volunteers
A newsletter, "Upwind", is published quarterly and is free to all who request it. It was first created in spring of 1991.
All information presented here was taken from the Volunteer Staff Handbook,
printed in May 1995 by FOAM.
These pages are under
construction