Paddling Night Kicking Off TONIGHT – Down by the (Anacostia) River!

Picture courtesy of Eric Sibley/Anacostia Watershed Society

Hey there Hill folks!  My name’s Eric Sibley, and I’m the Manager of Stewardship & Recreation Programs at the Anacostia Watershed Society (AWS).  Today I’m guest-posting to let you know about an excellent (and free) opportunity to take advantage of the Hill’s greatest natural and recreational resource, the Anacostia River!  Tonight, Wednesday, July 6th we’re going to kick off our series of bi-weekly Paddling Nights at the Anacostia Community Boathouse which is just south of Congressional Cemetery on M Street SE.  We’ll have staff, canoes and kayaks there for anyone who would like to paddle out on the river between 5 and 8PM.  Worried about dinner?  We’ve got you covered.  We’ll be grilling on-site, so bring your appetite too.

I should also explain a bit about why AWS got involved in the larger Recreational Paddling Program and what we hope to achieve through it.  Basically, we believe that recreation leads to stewardship, and the Anacostia River needs all the stewards it can get.  By partnering with the Anacostia Community Boathouse Association (ACBA) on a program like this, we hope to reconnect people to the river from the Hill, the rest of the District and beyond in an even more proactive way.  Our Paddling Night is about providing that opportunity with no strings attached.  It means you don’t need to own a boat and you don’t need to pay a fee.  All you need to do is commit your time, and what better way to spend it than on an evening out on the water to cap the day off.

We’ll be out hosting Paddling Night through the summer and early fall every other Wednesday from July 6th onward.  If you’d like to learn more or RSVP, check out our calendar at www.anacostiaws.org/calendar.  If your interested programming in general from AWS and/or ACBA, you can visit our websites respectively at http://www.anacostiaws.org and www.anacostiaboathouse.org/.