From 2000 to 2009, the OAEC Basins of Relations Program provided trainings and ongoing technical support for the creation of community-based groups organized within watershed boundaries.  The program was designed to increase the level of awareness and familiarity that citizens have within their home watershed “basin of relations,” and to empower them to initiate local education, monitoring and restoration efforts. The main goal of this program, along with much of OAEC’s work, is to move beyond individual actions towards community-wide, regional, structural solutions.

For over 25 years, OAEC has had a deep collaboration with Food For Thought (FFT), a food bank in Forestville that serves over 700 clients living with HIV/AIDS and other critical illnesses. After many years of volunteering with FFT, Doug Gosling, OAEC’s Mother Garden Biodiversity Program Director, helped to establish the garden there in 1999 and steadfastly managed and maintained this robust one-acre plot with the help of a dedicated team of FFT volunteers till 2019. OAEC furnished the Food Bank with seeds, starts, labor and inspiration for so many years, and thus, the OAEC Mother Garden Biodiversity Program considers the Food for Thought garden to be its most important “daughter garden!”