2025 in Review: Environmental Impact with EcoWorks

We are proud of our accomplishments at Howard EcoWorks with our impact on the environment, community, and professional growth. This blog aims to highlight various projects, career development, and activities that occurred throughout the year. 

EcoWorks engaged in numerous environmental projects around the Baltimore Region, ranging from tree planting, conservation landscapes, rain gardens, beaver dam analogues (BDAs), live staking, and more. These projects improve native local ecosystems by increasing biodiversity and supporting healthier waterways. 

Before we dive in, it’s crucial to understand that our core mission supports workforce development programs with green industry initiatives and learning. UpLift, READY, and EcoAmbassadors are programs that we’ve developed, where participants engage in conservation efforts while receiving training and environmental industry exposure. Our programs are in partnership with the Maryland Department of Service and Civic Innovation Year of Service, in addition to a continued partnership with the MD Department of Labor EARN program, and Howard County Government. 

METRICS

In 2025, we accomplished the following: 

• 235 project site visits

• 11,660 sq ft of conservation landscaping installed

• 1,008 trees and shrubs installed

• 7,634 native perennials planted

• 104 professional development activities completed

• 47 new staff, crew members, and interns hired

• 14 EcoWorks Anniversaries and 4 promotions

• 482 volunteers engaged with a combined 970 hours

Winter and Spring: Quarter 1

Spring gives way to brilliant Blue Flag Iris and the pink buds of Eastern Redbud trees, while our conservation efforts focus on tree plantings and invasive species removal in local forests. Our Fall and Winter cohort graduated in February. Ben Huff, Abby Lehman, and Charlie Davies from our UpLift Team, and Joshua Jimeta and Marvin Gordon from our Maryland Service Year Team were celebrated by our staff for their achievements in conservation and certifications. 

Additionally, we hired Brent Levin as our AmeriCorps Program Leader and 4 people for our Spring and Summer UpLift Cohort: Kyle Mulloy, Grace Quintilian, Gwen Robbins, and Tom Pfeifer.

Our crews received multiple professional development trainings, including watershed health assessment, winter tree ID, and green industry networking opportunities. But the one that stood out the most during this time was the Leadership Retreat at Thorpewood with our host Paul Kazyak. Leadership training and networking were in collaboration with the Climate Crew Network (CCN): Grow Home Baltimore, Defensores de la Cuenca, and Still Meadow Community. 

We completed numerous conservation projects, primarily aimed at tree planting and some garden installation training. The project we want to highlight for this season is planting 62 native trees and shrubs at Highland Lake Community. We would continue to visit this community throughout the year for additional garden installations, invasive plant removal in the woodland areas, and tree plantings to help stabilize the natural habitat. These projects were funded by the Howard County Community Stormwater Partnership Grant.

Another project we’d like to feature is planting 25 native trees and shrubs at the Baltimore County Arts Guild Clubhouse, which was funded by the Chesapeake Bay Trust (CBT).

Spring and Early Summer: Quarter 2

Many trees have transformed from colorful buds to lush green leaves, and many native perennial plants are blooming at this time. It’s during this season that our Spring UpLift crew has gained some experience, and we begin to hire and train our summer recruits for READY and EcoAmbassadors. Overall, we hired the following:

• Amy Colquist for the UpLift Team.

• Andrew Heffner, Basil Modrell, Chantal Desmarias, Ellen Kingsley, G Dacombe, Sharon Zhang, and Theodore Wells-Green for the READY team.

• Anushka Skariah, Beatrix Bergmann, Bhavya Sharma, Biak Lian, Brandon Yu, Kimora Bennett, Mahima Ampani, Maya Shanbhag, McKenna Gran, Monisha Subramanian, Nikhil Maddirala, Reese Garvey, Rishit Guttam, Rithvik Maturi, Saiharshith Dudyala, Sophia Obasiolu, Tanvi Modugula, and Will Flagg for EcoAmbassadors.

• Tabby Baier: Land Manager for Holly Hills.

• Valeria Tskhay: Community Engagement Specialist.

Our crews engaged in multiple professional development activities throughout this season, including bird survey training and GIS training. However, the activity we want to highlight for this season is the Masonville Cove Shoreline Cleanup. Our team participated in a shoreline cleanup hosted by the National Aquarium at Masonville Cove in collaboration with CCN. Additionally, participants engaged in an informational interview with members from Maryland Environmental Service, Mattias Orrego, Dimitri Rucker, and Colleen McMullen.

Conservation projects we want to highlight during this period include Resurrection St. Paul’s Pollinator Meadows in Ellicott City. We installed two gardens with a winding path in the middle, spanning 2,500 sq ft of conservation landscaping. These gardens feature 2,500 native perennial plants and grasses that provide habitat for wildlife and pollinators while filtering stormwater runoff. This project was funded by a grant through Howard County Government. 

Additionally, we installed a stream enhancement project at Freetown Farm in Columbia, MD. In collaboration with CCN our teams constructed 7 Beaver Dam Analogues (BDA) and installed 620 live stakes across a 500 sq ft area. This project is designed to restore eroded streambanks by slowing down the flow of water and introducing water-loving native plants along the edge. Our CCN partners were the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, Greater Baltimore Wilderness Coalition, Grow Home, Still Meadow Community Fellowship, and The 6th Branch Baltimore. This project was funded by a grant through Howard County Government. 

Major events that occurred during this season, which involved a full team effort, were annual fundraising and volunteer events!

Between April 14 - 19, 2025 we hosted volunteer events at 6 different locations throughout Howard County for our annual Alternative Spring Break Event. Our team and volunteers engaged in forest management, tree planting, invasive plant removal, and garden maintenance. Together, we accomplished mobilizing 90 volunteers and planted 283 native trees. Additionally, we celebrated Earth Day on the 19th, marking a first at Holly Hills and launching our new location for Seeds of Change, native plant nursery. 

We also hosted our 3rd Annual Soak It Up! Fundraiser in June. We were joined by dignitaries, Howard County Executive Calvin Ball, Senator Katie Fry Hester, and Howard County Council Members Deb Jung and David Yungmann. Additionally, we presented our first ever Soak It Up! Awards to Jana Davis, CBT's President, and David Yungmann in recognition of their outstanding partnership. To learn more about this event and view photos, click the link here. 

Late Summer & Fall: Quarter 3

This season is marked by heat and humidity, along with the blooms of Goldenrod and Joe Pye Weed, eventually giving way to the changing of the leaves. In August, we celebrated and graduated 29 program participants with 18 EcoAmbassadors, 4 UpLift, and 7 READY participants. Our UpLift and READY team engaged in multiple conservation projects, and EcoAmbassadors led several volunteer environmental initiatives throughout Howard County.

Additionally, we hired Abby Lehman (former UpLift participant) as Program Assistant, and Allie Capone, as Community Engagement Intern. We welcomed 10 UpLift cohort participants for a newly revised 10-month program: Anthony O'Dwyer, Brooke Lamplough, Chase Ackerman, Melanie Patrizi, Ottilie Wilcox, Peter Watson, Rex Beyer, Sharon Zhang, Sylvia Laciny, and Yexon Vasquez.

The most exciting green industry training our participants engaged in was Electrofishing with Montgomery Parks. UpLift and READY participants met with Aquatic Biologist Dave Sigrist, a Biological Monitoring Coordinator at Montgomery Parks in the Cabin John Watershed, South Germantown Recreational Park, and Booze Creek Stream Valley Park for electrofishing.

They learned from and assisted the researchers in collecting aquatic species caught during electrofishing. This data will help the researchers determine the health and conditions of the streams and the watershed. Special thanks to Montgomery Parks for providing photos of this excursion and hosting this activity!

During this season, we focus less on tree planting due to heat intolerance and dry conditions being unfavorable for new trees, and more on large conservation landscape projects, while we have larger crews to construct these projects. Our team visited the Murray Hill Community in Columbia, MD,  for a stormwater swale installation. This project spans over 2,387 sq ft and features 1,300 native plants and 11 native trees and shrubs. This project was funded by a Howard County Community Stormwater Partnership Grant to address stormwater issues. 

Additionally, our team engaged in a large expansive forest management project at multiple Maryland State Parks. In collaboration with Maryland Forest Services, we managed young tree plantings. This collaboration also represents our first official Host Site Partnership with our UpLift team, which combines conservation work and educational training. 

Fall and Winter: Quarter 4

Things are beginning to slow down. The leaves changed color and winter bursts occasionally paused projects. We switch over to forest management and tree plantings during this time. Additionally, we hired James Guernieri as a new Land Manager and Hoa Nguyen as our final UpLift member. 

A memorable career development activity we engaged in was a Carpentry Training and Green Industry exposure event. Fellow CCN organizations Grow Home and City of Refuge, hosted our team for a day of learning about using hand tools and working in trades from Chuck Sauer and Henry Scott, who are both experienced in carpentry and construction. 

Their goal was building air pruning tables, which are wooden and mesh boxes that are filled with soil and used for growing trees from seed. CCN will distribute the tables between partnering organizations, collect native tree seeds, and grow trees to plant in urban and underserved areas such as Baltimore. After the construction workshop and build, participants received a tour of the Filbert Street Community Garden, which also hosts goats and honey bees. 

Projects we want to highlight during this time include a massive tree planting effort funded by the Chesapeake Bay Trust Keep Maryland Beautiful grant. We partnered with CCN crews and volunteers from Leadership-U to plant 106 native trees at Holly Hills. CCN team were given a demonstration and collected seeds from hickory and locust trees that will be used in projects. Leadership-U volunteers are local high school students who are engaging in leadership and environmental efforts. 

Our final project that we’re highlighting is a tree planting project at Ellicott Mills Community in Catonsville, MD. To ensure consistent planting for this project, training was led by our staff members. Together, we planted 100 native trees and shrubs throughout woodland areas in the Ellicott Mills Community. EcoWorks has partnered with Ellicott Mills before on tree plantings and forest management to address stormwater runoff, and Ash tree die off. This project was funded by CBT. 

In November, we hosted our first birthday for Holly Hills with educational tours, a discount on native plants, and delicious treats. Our vision for Holly Hills includes rehabilitating the land with sustainable practices and native plants, expanding nursery production with greenhouses, and building a central hub that will act as our office and guest center. We’ve made many strides towards this goal in 2025, which can be reviewed here on the timeline. 

Additional Shoutouts and Recognition

We won 2 awards this year! At GreenFest in April, we received the Green Community Leadership Award from Howard County. We also received a certificate for Business Appreciation Week from Calvin Ball, Howard County Executive, who stopped by the Autism Society Hiring event in October. 

While we had many partnerships and funders for projects we want to highlight our primary benefactors for 2025 which have been Howard County Government and the Chesapeake Bay Trust. Howard County Government sponsors the READY and EcoAmbassador Program. UpLift is sponsored by Maryland Department of Labor and now in a new partnership with Maryland Service Year (Maryland Department of Service and Civic Innovation). 

Additionally, we want to shout out to our CCN partners who worked with us on projects, professional development, and networking opportunities: Maryland Department of Natural Resources, Greater Baltimore Wilderness Coalition, Grow Home, Civic Works, Still Meadow Community Fellowship, and The 6th Branch Baltimore.

We also want to thank our biggest donors and sponsors for Soak It Up! 2025: NVR, Kimley Horn, Talkin & Oh LLP, Keystones Custom Homes, and our anonymous donor. 

Lastly, we want to thank our entire staff and crew who work tirelessly for the mission and goals of our organization, and our supporters who are essential to our growth and success!