ANACOSTIA WATERSHED SOCIETY INC

Programs

1. Environmental education: through our environmental education program, the anacostia watershed society (aws) works to increase awareness, knowledge, skills, and a sense of stewardship among youth that will result in changes in both present and future behavior positively affecting the health of the anacostia river. 2024 engagement metrics include: - teachers trained (directly through programming) - 43 - students educated (directly through programming) - 5,344 programmatic highlights include: dc saturday environmental academy sea students engaged in many hands-on activities that took them from awareness to action regarding the benefits of increasing green infrastructure in our watershed. Summer environmental academy the summer environmental academy reaches students across the watershed in a free, week-long summer program focused on taking a deeper dive into restoration, history and recreation on the anacostia river and in the surrounding watershed. Schools in schools (american shad program) students were engaged in hatching their shad eggs in the classroom, an intro class with aws educators, and a shad fry release field trip out on the anacostia. Additionally, students met our shad…

   $767,857 spent$811,588 earned by the program
   39% of program spending

2. Restoration: aws restoration program celebrated key milestones for 2024. Key metrics include: - 980 native plants, shrubs and trees planted - 1,757 freshwater mussels released into the anacostia river - 1.42 acres of land cleared from invasive plant species - 35 tons of trash removed from the watershed - 2,483 volunteers joined aws staff in our field conservation and restoration efforts programmatic highlights include: earth day 2024 cleanup aws' signature earth day cleanup attracted 1,506 volunteers to 38 cleanup sites across the watershed, removing a total of 5948 lbs of trash from the watershed. Wild rice restoration after over two decades of dedicated effort, aws has successfully re- established wild rice in the wetlands of the anacostia river. This keystone species was virtually eliminated from the watershed by pollution and habitat destruction. Through careful harvest and planting of wild rice seeds by our students and volunteers, and predator control to allow the plants to grow, we reached 26 acres of self-sustaining wild rice. State of the river report card aws continued our critical role of monitoring water quality for the anacostia river through the 2024 state of the…

   $928,886 spent$778,040 earned by the program
   47% of program spending

3. Advocacy: aws saw the realization of several years-long advocacy efforts in 2024. Highlights include: plastic pollution reduction after years of advocacy to establish a deposit-return system for incentivizing recycling of single use beverage containers (plastic, glass, aluminum), aws has campaigned actively for support of a bottle bill in the maryland state legislature and in the district. This introduction marks significant progress towards reducing pollution in the anacostia watershed, where the single most common piece of trash collected in river clean-ups is the plastic bottle. This progress follows strong advocacy by aws and other partners that led prince georges county to ban single-use plastic grocery and retail bags. Preliminary surveys show the percentage of shoppers using reusable bags or no bag at all rose from 12% to 69% since this legislation went into effect, a change that will significantly reduce plastic pollution in the watershed.

   $254,376 spent$145,000 earned by the program
   13% of program spending

4. Recreation: aws offers free recreational opportunities on and around the river to our watershed community, and we continued to see high demand for these programs in 2024. Our recreational program consists of motorized and canoe-based boat tours. Thanks in strong part to support from the river explorers program within the district department of energy & environment, aws engaged approximately 1,816 adult and student residents of the watershed in our free educational boat tours. These tours enabled community members to experience the beauty of the river firsthand, observe wildlife in an urban setting, and develop a sense of stewardship and connection to the anacostia river and its watershed.

   $40,382 spent$88,407 earned by the program
   2% of program spending

The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $1,991,501.