CHIMACUM — A new sign now denotes the rain garden administered by Kit Pennell’s classroom at Chimacum Middle School.

The sign was funded by a grant from Seattle-based Stewardship Partners and installed by the North Olympic Salmon Coalition.

Washington State University’s Jefferson County Extension received the grant, which also allowed local Master Gardeners to be trained as rain garden mentors.

The mentors provide advice and information to homeowners interested in building rain gardens.

The rain garden was built by the Port Hadlock based AmeriCorps members serving in the Washington Conservation Corps — or WCC — for their Martin Luther King Jr. Service Project.

Project support was received from the North Olympic Salmon Coalition, the Hood Canal Salmon Enhancement Group, the Airport Garden Center, the Washington Association of Conservation Districts, Henery Do It Best Hardware, the city of Port Townsend and the Chimacum School District.

The salmon coalition and the WCC have used the rain garden to teach multiple Chimacum classes about storm water.

Rain gardens are bowl-shaped gardens that catch and clean polluted runoff that otherwise becomes Puget Sound’s single greatest source of pollution.

WSU and Stewardship Partners promoting an effort to build 12,000 rain gardens throughout Puget Sound by 2016.

Anyone who has a rain garden, and who would like to have it count toward the goal, is urged to phone the Jefferson County Extension at 360-379-5610, ext. 222.

For more information, visit www.12000raingardens.org.