Greetings Willistown Parks & Recreation Friends,

We are very happy to announce that Andrew Vaskas, the Chairman of our Parks & Recreation Board, has been given the Willistown Township Community Service Award. The Board of Supervisors presents this award to a resident who has committed their time and energy to one of the many volunteer boards and committees of the Township. Please see the cover of the latest issue of the Crier, hot off the presses, to read more. Congratulations, Andrew!

The WillisTowne Crier also has important information on What To-Do about the Spotted Lanternfly now and through the winter. And here's a big shout out to our Spotted Lanternfly Smash-a-thon participants...thanks to you, Willistown Township came in second in the local municipal Smash-A-Thon competition! See page 2 of the Crier for the details and stay tuned for more about our Willistown Township Gold, Silver, and Bronze Smash-A-Thon Swatter winners.

Keep your eyes on our social media outlets, the Crier, our website, our memo boards, and our park kiosks in the new year for the release of our Willistown Parks & Recreation Survey. We are looking to gather your input to include in future planning and the Township's Comprehensive Plan update which will be started in 2020. You will also receive an announcement through our e-news.

Willistown Parks & Recreation is thrilled to host the Great Valley High School AP Environmental Sciences class at Okehocking Preserve each year for their woodland composition lab. We will be posting the results of their efforts under Parks & Recreation and Stewardship on our website. See page 3 of the Crier for more on their work.

The Willistown park system is different than many of our surrounding municipalities in that we offer two large preserves connected to a vast network of privately protected open space. Okehocking Preserve is 180 acres, and our 49-acre Serpentine Preserve connects to Natural Lands' 126-acre Willisbrook Preserve. With all of this open space, it follows that such groups as the Okehocking Weed Warriors are also unique to Willistown. Please see page 3 of the Crier for contact info and details about this group, and go to the Wild Plants page of the Department of Conservation & Natural Resources for lots of details.

These preserves are also important to our water resources. Okehocking boasts a stretch of the main stem of Ridley Creek, and Serpentine Preserve is in the headwaters of the Ridley and has a section of the Serpentine Run tributary. Both preserves house critical riparian buffers for these water resources. What's a riparian buffer? Please see page 5 of the Crier.

The WillisTowne Crier also includes articles from our Township Manager, Sally Slook, and our Chief of Police, John Narcise, as well as information on snow removal, recycling, and community news.

As always, please contact me with questions and feedback.

Yours in the out-of-doors,

Mary

Mary N. Hundt
Director of Parks & Recreation
mhundt@willistown.pa.us
610-647-5300 x224
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