Birding is for Everyone: “Spreading Bird Joy through Inclusion”

Join us for this educational and engaging session on how you can help make your local birding community more welcoming for all birders. Dr. Jeff Galligan & Rita Flores Wiskowski will share tips and tricks that will allow you to start having more success and fun when you go birding and offer advice on making your birding events more inclusive and welcoming. 

Jeff, Dexter and Rita firmly believe we need more equity and inclusion in the birding community across the board. That was their inspiration and spark to start the BIPOC Birding Club of Wisconsin which is a community of People of Color and Allies working to combat access and inequality in the birding community in the State of Wisconsin. They hope to collaborate and encourage other birding organizations across the country to do the same. Birding is for everyone, even you!  

Dr. Jeff Galligan is a co-founder of the BIPOC Birding Club of Wisconsin, is a member of the Madison Audubon's board of directors, and is the director of the TRIO Student Support Services and Men of Excellence programs at Madison College. He has been an avid birder for decades and believes there needs to be a birding community for people of color along with more inclusive representation of BIPOC in the conservation and stewardship conversation in Wisconsin. It is his dream to inspire young people of color to see themselves in STEM careers at an early age and hopes the BBC can be a catalyst in that endeavor here in the greater Madison area and across Wisconsin.  

Rita Flores Wiskowski is a fundraising professional with Lutheran Social Services of Wisconsin and Upper Michigan. She serves on the board of the Wisconsin Metro Audubon Society where she first began her work on diversifying the birding community. She is an avid birder and contributor to citizen science. She is also a volunteer wetland surveyor with Milwaukee County Parks Natural Area Programs. She joined the BIPOC Birding Club of Wisconsin as its Milwaukee area coordinator in October 2021. It is her dream to bring the experiences she has had with nature to more people, and especially people of color. She wants to help people discover their place in nature and to gain a lifelong desire for learning, discovery, and adventure.

ALAS programs 2022-23 are FREE and open to the public. The presentation will be offered in a hybrid format. Onsite at the Lincoln Center (1519 Water Street, Stevens Point, WI) or on Zoom at 7pm, Wednesday, February, 15th. By registering, you will receive an email reminder for this talk.