Stepping Out Stepping In

01/19/2026

Great crowd of Earth loving volunteers for MLK Day at Middle Harbor Shoreline Park. It's never too late to change the tide!

12/25/2025

"The path is made by walking, so walk." Alan Watts

09/20/2025

01/21/2025

What a fantastic 2025 MLK Day of Service at Middle Harbor Shoreline Park! We made a positive difference! Today I was excited to help lead a wetland plant restoration project. Volunteers helped remove invasive sea lavender and then planted some low growing wetland plants such as Pickleweed and Alkali Heath purchased from the Watershed Nursery in Richmond. I am so proud of the great work that is doing to steward this park and provide excellent environmental education programs for our Oakland community. Thank you to all the wonderful volunteers, naturalists, and The Port of Oakland for providing healthy morning snacks and an amazing lunch made by the Grand Lake Kitchen.

10/16/2024

I am happy to announce that has officially been awarded the Port of Oakland contract to provide environmental education programs at Middle Harbor Shoreline Park. For those of you who know me as Tara Turtle, I want to say that I couldn't be more happy about this transition. Beth Bee or more formally Beth Teper, the founder of Nurture Nature, worked with SOSI for nine years, first as an intern from Merritt College and then as my Program Director. I trust that the programs are in excellent hands and Beth and her team of naturalists will level up the programs to even greater excellence. After developing curriculum and working at MHSP for 16 years (wow!), I decided to "step out" to tend to other life and family responsibilities. Teachers please head on over to Nurture Nature and trust that the application and scheduling process should be much the same as in past years. I will post more updates in the coming months. Please stay connected as SOSI may have some more and different offerings come spring of 2025. Cheers!

05/16/2024

Thank you Mother Earth for your gifts on this day!

04/25/2024

Thank you to all the wonderful volunteers who came out to last Saturday for YOU rock!!! We love Oakland estuary and we love YOU even more for joining us to make the SF Bay Estuary a more clean and safe place for us Earthlings and the other creatures we share it with. Thank you to the Port of Oakland for providing lunches and funding to make this happen!

04/21/2024

Thanks everyone for volunteering at Middle Harbor Shoreline Park and making this the best Earth Day ever!!

04/20/2024

Tomorrow we are hosting our Earth Day Shoreline Clean up from 9am -noon at Middle Harbor Shoreline Park. Come on down!

04/19/2024

We had so much fun exploring the mud (benthic zone) of the San Francisco Bay Estuary yesterday with 5th graders from Bella Vista elementary school in Oakland!