Cicely served with the West Virginia Railroad Museum in 2018-2019. She created an exhibit about the C&O Canal as her major project; but teamed up with other heritage AmeriCorps to create the AFNHA passport program.
Conservation
Each year between December 14 and January 5, naturalists and bird lovers across the western hemisphere mobilize in the longest-running community science project in the world. Volunteers go out on one day to count birds in the Audubon Christmas Bird Count (CBC). The data collected by thousands of volunteers has been used as a valuable resource to understand trends in bird populations over the past century. On December 14, we ventured out for a Christmas Bird Count in Pocahontas County.
On Saturday, December 7th, I helped organize and uphold a unique and ancient English caroling tradition in Elkins, where we recreated this ancient English tradition at the Kump House in order to bless their apple trees, chasing out harmful spirits and waking the trees up for the coming winter so that they will have a bountiful harvest next fall. While this sounds strange, the event itself is more about bringing the wider Elkins community together in an evening of song and creating a fun tradition that will hopefully become a yearly event!
Conservation, Heritage, Community Development
In our 2023-24 member service year, we supported 34 AmeriCorps members at 20 organizations whose sites, programs, and activities were visited by 39,860 individuals. These members delivered educational programs to an audience of over 5,000 individuals, treated and improved 1,052 acres of public land, and managed 1,501 hours of volunteer service. 1,184 individuals who participated in our stewardship education programs reported increased knowledge of environmental stewardship.
Heritage
Madeline Ricks is an AmeriCorps member with AFNHA, serving as the Collections Preservation Coordinator for The Augusta Heritage center in Elkins, WV. She has begun writing a new blog series for the Augusta website. Beginning with the African origins of the banjo, Madeline will take readers on a journey through the histories and cultural impacts of the instruments played in West Virginia’s musical traditions.
Heritage
There are many interesting and unique materials housed in the Upshur County Historical Society Document Repository that have never been displayed in an exhibit. Some materials have been overlooked because, while interesting, they relate to a topic that is too narrow to warrant an entire exhibit. This year’s exhibit gives space for these materials to shine.
