Westlake Village : Club Encourages Water Conservation

The Westlake Woman’s Club has enlisted the aid of 850 schoolchildren and a cartoon bear named Sierra to encourage area residents to conserve water.

The bear, named after the Sierra Nevada mountain range, is the centerpiece of the group’s conservation campaign that is designed to teach children about the importance of water conservation. Woman’s Club leaders say they hope the children will later encourage their parents to conserve at home.

“The real message is to the young children,” said Virginia Drasnin, a member of the club and the bear’s creator. “Through the children we reach the adults.”

The organization will distribute drawings of Sierra in area schools for 850 first-graders to color. The children who do the best coloring will win stuffed Sierra bears.

The picture shows Sierra and a smaller bear drawing water from a snow-fed mountain lake in the Sierra Nevada, the source of much of the state’s water.

The idea, Drasnin said, is for children to learn where water comes from and how much expense and effort it takes to bring it to such places as Westlake Village, hundreds of miles away. “Water is precious,” reads the caption. “Use it wisely.”

The campaign has been so successful, Drasnin said, that the California Federation of Woman’s Clubs plans to use it among member clubs throughout the state.