On September 18th, the Virginia Conservation Network celebrated Hispanic Heritage Month at the RioPalooza Bilingual River Festival at the George Washington-Jefferson National Forests.
Co-hosted by our Partners at the Potomac Riverkeeper Network along with the National Park Trust and the Hispanic Access Foundation, the festival was a free, public day for conservation advocates and the local community to learn more about watershed conservation in both Spanish and English.
The day was jam-packed with family-friendly activities like tubing down Passage Creek, fishing, riding horses, and identifying wildlife tracks. We were particularly smitten with a musical performance by Mister G, a Latin Grammy award-winning musician who performs multi-cultural, bilingual shows for children with a focus on environmental education. For our parents out there, make sure to check out his “Mundo Verde/Green World” music video or “Señorita Mariposa” (miss butterfly) children’s book about the monarch butterfly’s annual journey.
RioPalooza provided a great opportunity for VCN to connect with our partners and a new, bilingual audience as we slowly re-enter an in-person world. If you’re interested in participating in the 2022 RioPalooza on September 17th, or learn how to offer a RioPalooza event to celebrate your own watershed, then contact Dr. Kimberly Winter, NatureWatch Program Leader, at kimberly.winter@usda.gov.
Thank you to the Potomac Riverkeeper Network for a terrific event!