Out-of-Cluster Contenders

2011 marks the 4th run of our Garlic Mustard Challenge. Like many events, support for the Challenge has grown from year to year as more people hear about it and get involved. It’s particularly interesting to note how much support has grown for the Challenge outside of our Clusters.

In 2008, for the first run of the Challenge, 18,436 pounds were reported from outside of our (at the time) five Clusters. The next year, we saw a slight dip in that number to 11,090 pounds. At the time, we had just launched the Lakeplain and ThrEE County Clusters, so people who had been reporting from the Metro Detroit and down river areas, as well as Shiawassee, Genesee and Lapeer counties, were now reporting for different Clusters.

In 2010 our O.O.C. folks made a huge jump forward, reporting 35,575 pounds and coming in at 4th place. That jump in numbers comes from us being able to focus some concentrated time on outreach, as the Challenge that year was funded by a grant through Sustain Our Great Lakes.

This year, many of those Out-of-Cluster reporters have returned! As of last week, O.O.C. had pulled 40,679 pounds, placing them in second place behind West Michigan. And they’ve had some more big reports coming in the past couple days! They’re continued, and growing involvement is a good indicator to us of just how useful it is for our partners to feel that their efforts are linked with something larger. Thank you to all of our supporters and participants!

Will O.O.C. win the 2011 Garlic Mustard Challenge? Will West Michigan be able to hold the lead for the next 32 hours? Has the two-year Champion, the Huron Arbor Cluster, been sandbagging and saving up their pounds to report on the last day?

Make your report by 12 midnight ET tomorrow (Friday, July 8th). Your pounds could determine the winner for the 2011 Challenge!