Share Your San Juan Islands Driving Story
The San Juan Islands License Plate Project Awards Grants to Benefit Islanders
What is your favorite Island drive?
Do you have stories of your favorite jaunts
in the islands with your
San Juan Islands Special License Plate?
At the 2022 San Juan County Fair, the crew of the Madrona Institute offered the opportunity to fair attendees to share their favorite island drives, with the goal of informing people about the San Juan Island Special License Plate.
Share your stories and images of your car with your San Juan Islands License Plate with us in a few different ways:
Post a picture of you and your license plate (you can block out the license plate number if you wish!) on our Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/MadronaInstitute
Email us your favorite driving stories and images at: hello@shannonborg.com
More about the San Juan Islands
Special License Plate
The Madrona Institute has awarded $22,500 to local organizations in its first year of grantmaking based on revenues received from sales of the San Juan Islands Special License Plate.
You can sign up online to get registered for this beautiful license plate featuring San Juan Island Artist Nancy Spaulding’s painting, Evening Passage.
Save money when renewing your tabs early and getting new specialty plates
Find out more at: https://www.dol.wa.gov/vehicleregistration/spsanjuan.html
If your tabs expire in 6 months or less, you can save money by getting your new plates and tabs at the same time. By renewing early, you won't have to pay the following plate renewal fees the first year, and $28 goes to support Madrona Institute grants:
● $30 for specialty plates
● $42 for personalized plates
Share your Favorite Island Drives
and tag us on Facebook!
#MadronaInstitute
@madronainstitute
#sjilicenseplate
How are the Grants Awarded?
Recent recipients include the San Juan Islands Conservation District for their San Juan Islands Youth Conservation Corps ($6,000); the Friends of the San Juans for their Youth Environmental Mentoring Program ($5,000); the Alchemy Art Center for their Young Environmentalists Art Intensive & Exhibit Program ($5,000); the Coast Salish Youth Stewardship Corps operated by The Madrona Institute ($4,000); and the Indigenous Education Institute for their Indigenous Speaker Series–A Sense of Place in the Pacific Northwest: Indigenous Perspectives on Land, Water, and Sky ($2,500).
Alchemy Art Center for their Young Environmentalists Art Intensive & Exhibit Program
Awards are made on an annual basis for local projects and programs that support the conservation and stewardship of agricultural, cultural, historic, and natural resources in the islands, with emphasis on youth engagement. It is expected that grantmaking will increase each year as plate sales increase across the county, region, and state.
Purchasing a San Juan Islands Special License Plate is a great way to support stewardship in the San Juan Islands.
Washington State Poet Laureate
and Lummi Tribal Member, Rena Priest
The grant monies greatly benefited the Indigenous Education Institute this year. It covered much of
the expenses for our Pacific Northwest Speaker Series: A Sense of Place - Indigenous Perspectives
of Earth, Water and Sky. We we able to bring in Washington Poet Laureate Rena Priest, a Lummi
tribal member, for an outstanding presentation, via zoom. More than 450 participants joined in the
presentation and following discussion. The chat room was really buzzing with excited conversations
among scientists, poets, San Juan County residents, teachers, professors and students. The
evaluation responses were 100% extremely positive.
Environmental Club Visits Yellow Island
and Brown Island to Clean Up!
The stewardship grant we received was critical for our work with Environmental Club students this
year. Because of this grant we were able to meet weekly with the Friday Harbor Eco Club, mentor
(11) students on a community action project, as well as one student from Spring Street International
School, and we were also able to offer stewardship trips to Yellow Island for Great Islands Clean Up
and to Brown Island for a beach restoration project that involved planting native dune grass. This
grant was important in enabling us to accomplish our mission of protecting and restoring the San
Juan Islands and the Salish Sea for people and nature by helping us to inspire youth stewards
through meaningful and hands-on experiences in the community. Friends of the San Juans staff was
able to mentor 12 students on community action projects that gave them the tools to take action, the
leadership skills to spread awareness and education, and connected them with other leaders in the
community and government officials. Friday Harbor Eco-Club students
Please share one memorable highlight on how the grant boosted stewardship,
youth opportunities, and/or climate action.
Final Art Show was a Highlight of the Program
It's difficult to pick out one specific highlight (there were so many!) but everything culminated in the
final art show. It was truly wonderful to see all of the work created during this 10-week session, and
what kids chose to focus on for their final projects. Some students expressed their feelings about
climate change in powerful images and messages that they screen printed onto apparel, others
focused on up-cycling items destined for the landfill into sculptures and decor, and others created an
"earth strata" planter out of recycled clay to showcase native mosses and plant life. And these are
just a few examples! By the end of this course, each student was more confident and expressive in
their concern for their world, and had developed many new tools for expressing their ideas. The final
show highlighted their achievements beautifully, and it was a joy to celebrate with them.
This program really changed the way the kids
look at the world and in particular their understanding
of local tribal communities in terms of
authentic Indigenous stewardship
and the value of Indigenous languages,
as key components
in understanding the world we live in.
This kind of sharing and understanding creates collaborations between the native and non-native world. It builds
awareness of the traditional Indigenous ways of stewardship and coping with environmental change. To me, the most
amazing thing was how Rena Priest was able to talk science in terms of poetry. This took the talk out of the "box" of
looking at science and enabled participants to understand science in terms that everyone could understand
and value. The participants who were scientists may have been moved the very most by her
presentation. Everyone wanted to hear more from her. This goes a long way into building community relationships.
One memorable highlight was when our Spring Street student took the initiative to present to a
middle school Climate Change class about her time in our Environmental Leadership Club. This was
especially memorable because it pushed this student outside her box and allowed her to step up into
a leadership role and spread the word to younger students the importance of stewardship and some
of the hands-on, local actions we can take to help combat large, global issues like Climate Change.
This was also a great recruitment strategy to get students involved in our mentorship program.
