• Home
  • How We Work
  • Where We Work
  • News Room
  • About Us
  • My Nature Page

The Nature Conservancy in Africa - Conservation in Africa

The Nature Conservancy in Asia Pacific - Conservation in Asia-Pacific

The Nature Conservancy in the Caribbean - Conservation in the Caribbean

The Nature Conservancy in Central America - Conservation in Central America

The Nature Conservancy in North America - Conservation in North America

The Nature Conservancy in the United States - Conservation in the United States

The Nature Conservancy in South America - Conservation in South America

Past Accomplishments of Virginia Volunteers
Volunteer Action Update to keep you in-the-know!

Fire and Dirt Workers. Americorps crew members like gritty work. This is fortunate because last spring the Conservancy had some big dirty projects and obtained three Americorps crews to tackle them. In all, 23 people completed 4,000 hours of work at key Virginia preserves, doing fire restoration work near Wakefield (Neal Humke, supervisor), and trail improvement work near Charlottesville (Tim San Jule, supervisor). Americorps is a national service organization that provides college-age, low-cost labor for a wide variety of community service projects across the country. The only cost to TNC is for lodging. The fire crews gave 2,350 hours, completed ten burns totaling 589 acres, and cleared firebreaks for 15 days. They even assisted monitoring the nest cavities of red-cockaded woodpeckers, and marked trees for timber thinning/habitat improvement. The trail crew gave 1,650 hours, spent 14 days making trails (and steps and bridges) at Fortunes Cove Preserve, and also moved lumber in to help restore a hurricane washed-out bridge at Berger Preserve. Talk about great work done by great workers! Their effort set the record for the largest concentration of volunteer hours in the history of TNC-VA. Great, great thanks to Americorps-- for being dedicated, strong, and flexible to the Conservancy's varying land stewardship needs statewide. (2005)

Ah, the Interns. Students tend to be hip. They also tend to want some work experience...even unpaid work experience. So big hoorays go to our five stellar volunteer interns this summer, each of which gained great work experience in exchange for the Conservancy getting great work accomplished. The interns included Shannon Smith (Fundraising), Josh Glubiak (Chesapeake Rivers program), Justin Shanks (Allegheny Highlands), Stephanie Sharer (Government relations), and Alex Merritt (Legal).  To give you a better idea how such internships work, it was last March when Alex (pictured above) first emailed to see if he might work as an unpaid summer intern with the Conservancy's legal department. The rest, as they say, is history. Alex was entering his senior year at UVA with a background in biology and a strong desire to attend law school. This all made him an excellent fit for an internship. The fact that he is a bird watcher extraordinaire didn’t hurt either since his supervisor, TNC's regional attorney George Barlow, is also an expert birder. Alex came armed with a "can-do" outlook and despite being told that this is not the exciting world of courtroom litigation, dove headlong into the thrilling world of organizing and labeling old files. Fortunately there were other opportunities for him to help and learn about the Conservancy by joining the easement property monitoring team at Occupacia Marshes where his birding knowledge was very beneficial, as well as conducting research at the UVA law library. We were pleased with his contributions and judging from his comments he found this to be a rewarding experience.  All education is a circle....so thank you interns, for teaching us! (2005)

Rick Barnett hits the Big Five. Hey, five years is a long time. And Charlottesville volunteer Rick Barnett just completed five years on our Fire Crew. Rick has a day job (as a cabinet maker), so amazingly for five years he's arranged time off from this paid job to work unpaid on controlled burns statewide. Great congratulations, Rick.  Thank you for all your steadfast fire crew work, your kind thoughtfulness, great wit, and for breathing in heavy smoke all in the name of biodiversity preservation. Hip hip!  (2005)

Shrub-Planting on the Eastern Shore.by Joe Scalf, Habitat Restoration Ecologist.Last December volunteers on Virginia's Eastern Shore finished planting over 1400 shrubs at Brownsville Farm to restore migratory bird habitat, and we had help from some GREAT volunteers!  Over a period of 3 or 4 days, I had help from several local residents, a group of NAVY submarine sailors with children, and a great bunch of Americorps volunteers loaned to us from their assignment at Kiptopeke State Park.  These folks endured 25-degree days all in support of TNC's agreement with the US Fish & Wildlife Service, in the Partners For Wildlife Program.  In our 15-year agreement, we are using trees, shrubs, and fallow areas to create wildlife travel corridors and restore wildlife habitat around cropfields in our Brownsville Preserve.  The plants, selected for their nutrional value to birds, were grown at two local nurseries.  We're especially grateful to the Virginia Coast Reserve staff staff who lended a hand, and to Dan Bilicki, who participated every time I called on him.  I also just want to clear up any rumors you may have heard.  I did indeed enlist the help of my mother. (2005)

Woodpecker Peeping. Virginia volunteers Rick Barnett and Len Ziegler were ladder-climbing species-peepers last month at Piney Grove Preserve in Sussex County. Their goal was to be trained in setting up and climbing up highly specialized tree-climbing ladders to approximately 30 feet up, up, up to look inside the nesting cavity holes of rare red-cockaded woodpeckers. This is a standard procedure done each winter to make certain the cavities do not contain competitor species such as squirrels. The two received their training from Neal Humke, staff land steward for Piney Grove. Fortnately, no other animals have taken over the homes of the woodpeckers. This preserve contains the last population of red-cocked woodpeckers in Virginia (about 20-25 birds). Interesting note: Rick, a Charlottesville cabinetmaker, has an agreement from his boss who allows him special time off for such volunteering. Len is retired, so no problem there. (2005)

Lobby Day in Richmond. Nearly 400 citizen volunteers came together in Richmond, Virginia on Jan 17 to express concern to state legislators about one thing: A dreadful lack of public money spent on natural resource protection. Virginia is now ranked dead last in the amount of money its state government spends on water and land protection. The citizens gathered that day in Richmond to speed up changing this ranking, especially now during state budget discussions. Many of the volunteers arranged personal meetings with their delegate or other state legislators. The Nature Conservancy was one of several organizations who participated in this day, much of it spearheaded by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the Virginia Conservation Network. (2005)

Growing Money. Yes, it's true. You can grow money, and Julie Ericksen's Backyard Plant Sale proves it. This year her sale yielded a record $2,000 for the Conservancy's Chesapeake Rivers program, helping support the protection of the Pamunkey River and other key tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay near her home in Ashland. Julie came up with this unique idea all her own, a way for friends, neighbors and other plant lovers to come together each spring to sell their garden plants to each other, all as a fundraiser for TNC. But the best news is that so far her sales have netted a total of $7,000 over five years. Go Julie!  (2005)

Team Gossamer is the very unofficial name for the new crack team of insect naturalists who volunteered to lurk around TNC's Brownsville Preserve one weekend to survey butterflies and dragonflies. Big thanks to Larry Lynch, Paul Bedell, Lauren Scott, Mike Smith and Randy Emmitt for making a pilgrimage to the eastern shore to discover 40 species of butterflies(!), and 17 species of dragonflies and damselflies. Little things do add up! (2005)
 
Garden Groupies. Over at the Charlottesville office the Conservancy has utilized lots of office garden volunteers over the years to help weed and mulch and tend its perennial gardens. We would like to thank all of those who  have helped with getting the gardens where they are today. This includes Albemarle & Charlottesville Extension Office, Virginia Native Plant Society, Altrusa International, Ann McDaniel, Becky Eheart, Bernard Houg, Betty Jo Hensley, Bruce Dorries and Family, Candace Smith, Cara Gunnell, Catherine Cummings, Christina Gibson, Cindy Remington, Debby Hahn, Denis Mason, Don Carlton, Evelyn Jones, Fran & Frank Feigert, Fred Diehl, Ginger Cox, Ian Robertson, Isabelle Richmond, Janet van der Linde, Jill Stein, Jordan Neas, Judy Looney, Julie Crowe, Karen Patterson, Karla Miller, Katy Cleveland, Kelly Malloy, Lisa Horth, Lorrie Pollard, Lynn Fisher, Mackie Kudravetz, Marsha Newton, Megan Mansell, Meredith Bennett, Path Finders Group, Penny Hawkins, Perrin Quarles Associates, Peter Warren, Philip Stokes, Priscilla Foster-Thomas, Rebecca Tomaine, Rita Defrank, Ruth Hollister, Sharon Wheeler, Smith Garrett Architects, Teri Washington, Todd Davidson, Tracy Buchholz, United Methodist Church, United Way (Day of Caring), and Vincent Rizzo. (2005)