Water Awareness Committee at the Monterey County Fair – 2007

The Water Awareness Committee (WAC) participated in the Monterey County Fair in a big way this year. The WAC mission was to heighten water awareness among fairgoers by providing public information on the importance of water conservation.

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The WAC display booth was located on the busy Midway, Saturday, August 18th. That Saturday was a special day declared as Water Awareness Day. The booth was staffed by volunteer WAC members throughout the day and evening hours. Water conservation education materials, information, give-a ways, and displays were available with visitors. Throughout the event, fairgoers heard announcements on the public address system declaring the significance of the day. The announcements also invited visitors to visit not only the WAC booth, but other water conservation related vendor booths to learn and participate in conservation related educational activities.

WAC organized the very successful Water Travelogue Adventure Game to highlight ways to conserve water and encourage visitors to examine water conserving products. The Water Travelogue Adventure Game invited participants to visit water associated booths with a passport proved by WAC. At each of these booths visitors obtained a stamp on their passport. Once participants obtained all the stamps, their passports were considered complete. A drawing from the completed passports was then held. A number of prizes, coordinated by WAC volunteers, were given out to the winners. The grand prize were a high-efficiency clothes washer donated by Built-in-Distributors, a $100 gift certificate from Drought Resistant Nursery, a Toto dual flush toilet from Del Rey Supply and a Caroma dual flush toilet from Sustainable Solutions Int’l.

A highlight was the 3rd Annual Xeriscape Design Competition. For the third year WAC sponsored this event.  WAC volunteers organized the design competition, and conducted the judging for this special event designed to highlight the importance of water conservation in landscape design. On the day before the Fair opened, nine garden displays were judged on their quality and water conservation messages. All nine entries were judged as excellent and were prominently displayed for examination by visitors for the run of the Fair. Award announcements were placed on the winning designs. The three winners were presented with gift certificates provided by local landscape supply businesses.

First place prize, a $100 Gift certificate to Hydro Turf in Salinas, was awarded to Patrick and Chris Regan of Carmel Valley.

Second place prize, a $50 gift certificate to McShane’s Nursery and Landscape Supply in Salinas, was awarded to the Natividad 4-H Club members of Salinas!

Third place prize, a $25 gift certificate to Hydro Turf in Salinas, went to Kimberle Herring, Public Information Coordinator for the Monterey Regional Waste Management District in Marina

WAC was excited about the great participation in all the activities designed to increase water awareness among, providing public information on the importance of water and the need to conserve it.

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