Over the past few years, the Friends of the Tay Watershed have collaborated with Rideau Valley Conservation Authority to bring the Children’s Water Festival to our area so that local children are able to participate. The Children's Water Festival is a full-day, water-themed environmental education program, designed for Grade 4 students to teach them about the importance and fragility of our water supply.

Each year the Friends sponsor two local Grade 4 classes, providing bussing and volunteers to enable them to attend this festival. Two watershed schools (North Elmsley and Queen Elizabeth) attended the festival this past September, with the support of an employee volunteer grant from the Royal Bank of Canada. Numerous letters of appreciation, addressed to the program coordinator, Carol Dillon, together with children’s artwork, were received from the two sponsored schools. The letters and artwork were used as a display at Lake Links in October to show what children learn from sponsored activities such as this one. A small sampling of the letters and artwork are displayed below. Our thanks to the student who took the time to tell us what they learned at this festival. We are sorry we could not show all of the letters here.