KBO’s 2015 Bullock’s Rose Oriole Volunteer Award Goes to Sandy Jilton
*** NEWS RELEASE — FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ***
June 1, 2015
Contact: Marcella Rose Sciotto, admin@klamathbird.org, 541-201-0866
Klamath Bird Observatory is proud to announce that Sandy Jilton is the first recipient of our new
Bullock’s Rose Oriole Volunteer Award.
This award has been established to recognize individuals who demonstrate outstanding service as volunteers helping Klamath Bird Observatory fulfill its mission to advance bird and habitat conservation through science, education, and partnerships. Sandy Jilton is being recognized as the recipient of the Bullock’s Rose Oriole for her efforts to help make the Klamath Bird Observatory’s 2nd annual Mountain Bird Festival a success.
The Mountain Bird Festival is a community education event designed to foster the stewardship ethic needed to ensure thriving landscapes for humans and wildlife. This Festival represents a significant volunteer effort with nearly 50 community members chipping in over 1,200 volunteer hours to help put the event on. These volunteers help Klamath Bird Observatory staff with field trips, registration, vendors, planning, and much more.
Klamath Bird Observatory recognizes Sandy Jilton with the first Bullock’s Rose Oriole Volunteer Award
for her volunteer work that was essential to the success of this year’s Festival. Sandy worked tirelessly
to coordinate our food and drink vendors. She spent hours to find the right vendors who best
represented our region’s food and beverage culture. She then worked with them to ensure their
participation benefitted their businesses while also helping us to meet the conservation oriented goals
of the Festival. In addition to this core aspect of her volunteer role, Sandy was always eager to help out
in any way that she could. Her endless enthusiasm, good cheer, and skillful execution made her a
delight to work with.
Over the past two years bird enthusiasts from all over the U.S. have flocked to Ashland, Oregon for
Klamath Bird Observatory’s award winning Mountain Bird Festival. The Festival is designed to raise funds
for bird conservation while celebrating the role citizens play in conservation as well as the glory of the
birds and wildlife of southern Oregon and northern California. The Festival offers more than 35 field
trips that explore portions of the Cascade and Siskiyou Mountains, as well as the Klamath Basin, Shasta
Valley, the Klamath River, the Rogue watershed, and birding hotspots in and around Ashland and
Medford. Each year, more than 120 participants, many of which traveling from out of the area, come to
see some of southern Oregon’s unique bird species, and to contribute to bird conservation. In addition
to these contributions, participants spend an estimated $70,000 on lodging, meals, entertainment, and
more, demonstrating that birding means business and that the Mountain Bird Festival offers significant
economic benefits to our region.
By name, Klamath Bird Observatory’s new Bullock’s Rose Oriole Volunteer Award honors Stephanie
Bullock, the Festival’s 1st Volunteer Coordinator, and Marcella Rose Sciotto, the Mountain Bird Festival
Coordinator, who has made this Festival a successful volunteer-driven event.
Click here to read Talent’s News & Review profile and article on Sandy and her accomplishments.
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Advancing bird & habitat conservation through science, education, and partnerships