Black Warrior Riverkeeper Director of Development Charlie Scribner is hookin' us up with the best H20 possible and keeps us inspired to be that change we wish to see in the world.
Shilpi: Tell me about the Black Warrior Riverkeeper. Why would teens want to help and promote this organization in the community?
Charlie: Black Warrior Riverkeeper's mission is to protect and restore the Black Warrior River and its tributaries. We are a citizen based non-profit organization dedicated to improving water quality, habitat, recreation, and public health throughout our patrol area, the Black Warrior River watershed. This vital river basin is entirely contained within Alabama, America's leading state for freshwater biodiversity. Patrolling waterways, educating the public, and holding polluters accountable has made us an important proponent of clean water throughout the basin. Our job is to identify major pollution problems and work on cleaning them up.
Waterkeeper Alliance was founded in 1999 to connect and support local Waterkeeper organizations, each of which is an independent organization protecting its waterway and community. Waterkeeper Alliance offers legal, scientific, and capacity-building advice, provides networking opportunities, and often advocates for issues common to multiple local Waterkeepers (such as mercury pollution, a major issue in the Black Warrior River watershed). To view the entire list of the Waterkeeper programs worldwide click here.
Shilpi: What can you do for the community that some other organization can't?
Charlie: There are two basic characteristics that set a Waterkeeper organization apart from other locally-focused environmental groups. First, we all employ a full-time, paid patrolman called a "Waterkeeper" whose job is to patrol the watershed by boat, plane, foot, canoe (or anything else) in order to document pollution evidence and to educate the public about those local problems. Secondly, when we uncover evidence of pollution and the violating industry or government agency is unwilling to cooperate with us in solving the problem, Waterkeepers are not afraid to use litigation, such as the citizen enforcement provisions of the Federal Clean Water Act, to bring about positive solutions to pollution problems.
Shilpi: What are the five most significant accomplishments in the history of this organization?
Charlie: Please see the five attached press releases: four are about legal victories we have had in pollution cases, and the fifth is about educational videos we made with popular musicians, which we spread through our award-winning MySpace.com outreach program to help spread the word about our work.
Shilpi: What do you look for when getting volunteers? What skills and qualifications are essential for success in this organization?
Charlie: Because we have a small staff of three, and a non-profit budget, we can use all the help from volunteers that we can get. For our basic list of volunteer projects, click here. No special skills or qualifications are needed, nor is anyone turned away from volunteering with us due to their performance in school. Instead, we are simply looking for volunteers who are self-motivated and reliable, because we have hundreds of volunteers and it would waste our staff's time to have to have to constantly contact each volunteer. We prefer to give our volunteers a brief orientation by phone, email, or in person, depending on the project, then let them get started and keep us updated as they accomplish various facets of the project. In 2008 we had over a hundred volunteers contribute over 2000 hours of volunteer service through our local organization, so we have been fortunate to find many motivated volunteers of all ages (most frequently high school, college, and graduate students).
Shilpi: What other positions are you considering for teens?
Charlie: Besides our volunteer projects, we encourage teens and supporters of all ages to check out our website calendar so they can learn and spread the word about upcoming educational, social, or recreational events that either we organized or we support. We also encourage teens to spread the word online about our work through the methods listed here.
Shilpi: What type of support would a teen receive in terms of references, recommendations, or incentives?
Charlie: We keep a database in the office where we keep track of the hours each volunteer spends on each project. At the end of the calendar year (or sooner if needed for a resume, or job application) I send thank you letters to volunteers and list their total hours. If a volunteer does an extraordinarily good job on one or more projects, we sometimes write them a recommendation letter for college admissions, or jobs.
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