ReClam The Bay (RCTB) is a grass roots organization. Our volunteers enjoy hands on experiences to help repopulate the bay with shellfish and help kids and adults understand what they can and should do to keep the environment clean and friendly. To do this RCTB needs funds to conduct our work. Below we have identified who we are, what we do and what activities we have planned for the upcoming year that will require funding.

Who are we?
ReClam The Bay is an organization dedicated to providing education and awareness about the environmental benefit of shellfish filtering, feeding and cleaning our estuary. Our mission is to involve the general public so they will understand that the quality of the water in our estuary, and the quality of the shellfish we eat, are really their responsibility. By involving the public in the care, feeding and life cycle of these fragile creatures we believe that our citizens will better understand how working with the shellfish can help to clean up our environment and keep it clean. RCTB has been granted 501 (c) 3 nonprofit status.

What do we do?
Believing that the best way to become involved with a creature is to be responsible for its wellbeing, we work closely with the Barnegat Bay Shellfish Restoration Program (BBSRP) established by Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Ocean County. The BBSRP, with hands-on volunteers, builds and maintains clam nurseries (upwellers) to nurture baby seed clams that will repopulate the bay. BBSRP also provides education so volunteers know what to do, when and why. RCTB moves the care and feeding activities in to public view. It provides the education, awareness and support materials to tell the world about how these little creatures both depend on us, and benefit us. The Program has met with some early success. With only word-of-mouth promotion in 2005, hundreds of people visited the upwellers at St. Francis Center and Surf City Yacht Club. Both want to us expand the education to their children's programs in 2006.

A little history. The inspiration for our group came from Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Ocean County. According to them, "The best way to reclaim the bay is to reclam the bay." In the spring of 2005, Marine Agents Gef Flimlin, Cara Muscio and Program Associate Jan Larson started started the process. Jim Joseph, Chief of the NJDEP's Division of Fish and Wildlife's Bureau of Shellfish, serves as an advisor and partner to the group. BBSRP received funding from Ocean County Board of Chosen Freeholders, US EPA's Barnegat Bay National Estuary Program, and the Excelon Corporation.

About our volunteers. An average of 35 volunteers attended 20 hours of classes conducted by scientists including Dr. Gustavo Calvo, principal biologist with the Bureau of Shellfisheries who lectured on shellfish biology, water quality, construction of shellfish nurseries, and many other related topics. Classes were also lead by Rutgers Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory Scientists Drs. John N. Kraeuter and Susan Ford. Volunteers contributed hundreds of hours to construct the first nursery upwellers and attend classes and organizational meetings.

Building on continued involvement. The program grew 600,000 "babies" from 2mm (the size of the head of a pin) seed to an average size of 12mm (about the size of an M&M) for placement in the bay in 2005. The group is now planning to start with 1,200,000 clam seed in 2006 and also grow some oysters. Most importantly we want to involve more residents and vacationers in the care of shellfish both in the nurseries and in the bay.

Specific ReClam The Bay Activities:

Awareness
We want to involve the business community and the people who visit their establishments. Our plan is to have business display a ReClam The Bay plaque and to provide simple hand out material telling of the ReClam The Bay activities, the educational programs that we provide, how they can see where the "babies" grow and to visit the web site for more information. Volunteers will also attend a variety of festivals and events, take along some of the "babies" and display a story board.

The story board shows, in easy to understand text and graphics, the relationship of shellfish to the environment and what ReClam The Bay is are doing with the BBSRP to repopulate the bay. The same kind of display will be used at the upwellers where the public can observe Clam care and feeding.

Communication
We established a web sit in 2005 to provide some of the organization's information. Now we want to expand its use to gather water quality and other data that our volunteers monitor as part of the clam care. We also want to make the information available in graphical form so that individuals, students and teachers can review it.

Education
Several organizations have asked us to provide classes. We are developing the class outlines and materials to support this activity. We would like to outfit about 1/3 of our volunteers (15) with kits of: hands-on activities, visual aides, handout material and simple class projects to supplement a variety of class room, vacation and after school activities. Of course we want to make lesson plans and support materials available to any group or organization teaching about marine life.