February 2024
Everyone contributes a little bit to water pollution and flooding, and everyone can be part of the solution. Home is a great place to start! Join us to learn how to plant a rain garden that will soak up stormwater and absorb the pollutants it carries while attracting birds and butterflies to your yard. Learn why rain gardens are an important addition to the suburban landscape and how to properly size, plant, and care for your rain garden.
Included in the talk are local resources to get you started. Rebecca has focused her career on land and water conservation and restoration in Northern Illinois and beyond. Rebecca’s work protects, enhances, restores, and creates natural areas and encourages human interaction with nature in various ways. The projects that she develops and manages provide natural areas and stormwater filtration in rural and developed settings like river corridors, drainage systems, wetlands, parks and open spaces, and neighborhoods. These projects ensure many benefits to our communities, including open spaces for people to enjoy, habitat for wildlife, and areas to provide natural water filtration and prevent flooding.
Rebecca is the owner and president of Olson Ecological Solutions, LLC, a woman-owned consulting company founded in 2006 and co-owner of A3 Olson Ecological Joint Venture, LLC founded in 2021. Rebecca received her Master of Science in wildlife biology from Colorado State University after attending Denison University for her Bachelor of Arts in biology and minor in chemistry. She moved to Rockford in 2000. She volunteers to serve her community as a member of the Land Conservation Committee for the Natural Land Institute and the Land Advisory Council for the Forest Preserves of Winnebago County.