Transforming neglected natural areas, one step at a time.

Recent volunteering: 

Volunteers from Congregation Beth Israel at Shorebird Park

Above: At our February work party, volunteers enjoyed early spring and learning about Native American uses while doing spring weeding on Cerrito Creek at the foot of Albany Hill.

Below: Weed Warriors enjoyed planting yarrow and removing mustard and other weeds at Shorebird Park.

Volunteers from Alturas Assoc. on Strawberry Beach

Volunteers pull broom along Tilden's South Park Drive

Above: Weed warriors remove broom along Tilden Regional Park's South Park Drive.

Below: Our January King Tides walk explored history and a future of rising seas.

F5C President Susan Schwartz talks about rising seas on January's King Tides walk

Pulling broom in the Hillside Natural Area

Above: Weed Warriors kept the pressure on re-sprouting French broom, a serious fire hazard, in the El Cerrito Hillside Natural Area.

Helping Nature in the East Bay – Hands On

All-volunteer Friends of Five Creeks has worked hands-on for 27 years for clean water, healthy watersheds, and natural areas that welcome both wildlife and people. We work from Berkeley to Richmond on the urbanized east side of San Francisco Bay.

Join us in 2024

No March work party or e-news: We are taking a break to deal with some not-serious health matters, complete exciting projects with interns and other groups, and get ready for April, which always has more events than we can manage.

Volunteers caring for Cerrito CreekWeed warriors and other opportunities continue:

Join our informal, friendly group maintaining varied natural areas: Our "Weekday Weed Warriors" gather Tuesday mornings 10 AM - noon. Email f5creeks@gmail.com for more information or to get weekly email notification of locations.

As weather stabilizes, we look forward to more very-small-group walks using free, nonprofit citizen-science apps such as iNaturalist. It's a joy to experience and understand the nature around us. We also seek these observations for practical and policy reasons. We are seeking, for example, to have El Cerrito's draft plan for "fire fuel reduction, native forest conservation, and maintenance activities"  really includes long-term conservation and maintenance for the Hillside Natural Area, as well as getting needed permits to remove tall, fire-prone eucalyptus and pines. To do that, we need to know what is there. We want to understand how wildlife at all scales use vegetation. We want to build baselines and be able to observe effects of a changing climate.

Orange crowned warbler near Cerrito Creek Students and young adults launching environmental careers, or high-school juniors or seniors, can build environmental knowledge, skills, and experience in our short-term, part-time, paid internships. Fall internships are now full, but we expect openings for spring semester and in summer. We offer a wide variety of hands-on experience and resume building, including semi-independent projects. We have an excellent track record in helping people find good jobs. Candidates should enjoy hard physical work, love nature and the outdoors, and be able to work reliably and independently. We also need a variety of scientific and data-related skills, including monitoring, analyzing data, and a wide variety of writing, editing, and publishing skills, from designing and producing flyers to creating outdoor art displays, ArcGIS Story Maps, or even new web sites. Basic information here.

F5C would love to find a creative, tech-savvy volunteers to help in several ways. Email f5creeks@gmail.com if you are interested.

F5C recent and current-interest handouts, slide shows, and reports

F5C recent letters to agencies