Optimus Template

FORCE will again field dozens of leaders and hundreds of volunteers at sites throughout DC and Montgomery County to clean up trash along Rock Creek.  We plan to cover the entire 33-mile creek in one day with a Rock Creek Extreme Cleanup on Saturday, April 10, 2010.

Check out the map of cleanup locations.   We have a few more DC sites and many Montgomery County sites that are looking for a leader!  Contact us now to volunteer to scout a site (especially once all the snow melts), recruit volunteers, and to be a part of the Rock Creek Extreme Cleanup.  To volunteer now as a site leader or as a cleanup volunteer you can go to our simple and easy sign up page: Sign Up Page and email or call Eric Durland at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it / 202-550-6530.  Then join our site leader training on Thursday, March, 4 from 6:30-8:30 pm at the Rockville REI (1701 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD).  Even if you can't make the training, you can make a difference.

Nobody likes to see the plastic bags fluttering in bushes, beer cans in streams, or paper and styrofoam cups littering the hillsides.  So please come on out with your friends and neighbors to help our beautiful Rock Creek and all its creatures by cleaning up the creek, its tributaries and adjacent parkland.   FORCE focuses on the Rock Creek Watershed in cooperation with the Alice Ferguson Foundation Potomac River Watershed Cleanup and is supported in this effort by a generous grant from REI.

Major Partners

Saving Trees in Rock Creek Park

More than 100 people turned out on a beautiful, sunny morning to combat the English ivy that threatens trees in the Normanstone section of Rock Creek Park.  FORCE worked with the Embassy of Belgium, the National Park Service,  the Woodland Normanstone Neighborhood Association, and volunteers from the District and Maryland to tackle this invasive vine.  Starting in the Belgian Embassy parking lot, volunteers of all all ages worked tree by tree to clip, cut, and saw ivy growing up trees along the creek.  Representatives from several embassies located nearby participated in the event.

Rock Creek is a winter wonderland in the snow.  This photo was taken near Kensington Parkway in North Chevy Chase.  Find more photos here.  If you have photos to share, send them to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Visitors to the Chevy Chase Library in Northwest DC this fall were surprised to see a gutter downspout, the top of a rain barrel, and a pile of trash inside the library, but it was all part of a  recent FORCE exhibit.  Created by the FORCE Communications Committee, the exhibit described the nearby rain garden at the Chevy Chase Community Center.  It also described some other ways to protect the creek, including marking storm drains and picking up trash.  The exhibit, on display during the month of November, was part of a great partnership among FORCE, the Chevy Chase Library, the D.C. Government, and the Chevy Chase Citizens Association.  The exhibit may be gone, but the rain garden is hard at work!  To see some additional photos of the exhibit and the rain garden (before, during, and after construction), select this link.