The Raccoon River Watershed Association (RRWA) will host its annual “Life in the Raccoon River” conference Friday and Saturday, March 1-2, at the Hotel Pattee in Perry.
This year’s conference, the eighth annual, is entitled “Going Against the Flow: Building Resilient Communities in the Raccoon Watershed.” Art Cullen, Pulitzer Prize-winning editor of the Storm Lake Times, will be the featured speaker at a fundraising dinner Friday evening.
The evening will start with a social time at 5 pm. The 6 pm dinner will feature a menu of local foods prepared at Hotel Pattee’s Harvey’s Restaurant. Tickets are $50 and are available online at www.northraccoon.org or by email at anglermurphy@msn.com
The RRWA is an organization of dedicated citizens who have vowed to “preserve and enhance the Raccoon River and its watershed.” Of the many conservation groups in Iowa, RRWA is unique in that it is an all-volunteer, non-profit that is almost totally self-funded and focuses on the entire ecosystem of the watershed.
Once again, dinner proceeds will go to fund the RRWA’s Research and Education grant program. The group has awarded more than $50,000 in grants over the past 14 years to professor-student teams to investigate the condition of multiple forms of life in the Raccoon Basin.
The focus of Saturday’s Life in the Raccoon River conference will be local food production and care for the land. Sessions will begin at 9 am and end at 12:30 pm. The conference is free and open to the public thanks to a generous grant from the Des Moines Waterworks.
Persons who want more information can visit www.northraccoon.org or email anglermurphy@msn.com
