Kent Anderson has spent the last 1 & ½ years as Executive Director of the Effie Yeaw Nature Center (EYNC), but before that he spent more than 20 years with non-profit organizations.  He really is a local Northern Californian at heart, being raised in Roseville and has been involved with nature and the care of wild animals for most of his life (Kent spent years taking kids on hikes into nature in what is now the EYNC.

Of course great credit is given to Effie Yeaw, who was a teacher, naturalist, and environmentalist who gave tours of what was then called the Deterding Woods during the 1950s and brought attention to the idea of preserving the area from commercialization. In 1960 land was beginning to be purchased by the county and in 1972, the region was designed as a park and in 1976, it was dedicated as the Effie Yeaw Nature Center. In 2008, the park had money problems after the great recession, and so was helped financially by (AHRNA) the American River Natural History Association.  In July, 2010, AHRNA was chosen by the county to take over operations and funding of EYNC. The Nature Center today publishes books, maintains a nature study area, the Discovery Store, with lots of exhibits of reptiles, amphibians, and lots of other “Animal Ambassadors.” Kent brought along a beautiful bird, a Kestrel Hawk, shown above for us to visit with. The center has programs of all kinds, school programs, a museum and exhibit programs throughout the year. They have week-long camp programs which allows people to experience the whole area (about 100 acres) through hiking their many trails. They collect almost all of their funding from their member subscriptions, programs and donations, almost no funding is gotten from the government.  Kent left us with a wonderful little book, the Pocket Guide to Creek Birds of California.

President Dick expressed the Club's fondness for their activities and remarked on what a beautiful place the park is, and of course, we will support EYNC in any way we can. A book will be donated in Kent’s name to the Carmichael Library (subsidiary of the Sacramento Public Library) – perhaps one on nature! You can get more information by going to:

 https://www.sacnaturecenter.net