FROM THE DIRECTOR

We should talk more often!

In lieu of some inspiring prose about saving the great outdoors, let’s talk business.

Newsletters take a lot of time, money and effort to put together. There’s the time the staff spends interviewing landowners, taking pictures and writing the stories. Then a graphic designer has to design the newsletter, which involves a few rounds of edits. Finally, it goes to the printer, which has to print and mail several hundred copies to folks across Virginia.

The end result is that we don’t get to share with you all the good stuff your support is accomplishing across southwest, central and Southern Virginia nearly often enough! We’re aiming to fix that. This issue of Land Savers is the first of a shorter format that will hit your mailboxes more often—every other month, to be exact.

We hope we can make Land Savers a more manageable project on our end, and get the latest news in your hands on a more regular basis.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t offer at least a little inspiring prose, so here it is: Well done!

You are making incredible things happen all around us. Thanks to your support, family farms that have been under plow and under hoof for decades, even centuries, are protected forever. Mountainsides will stay green and lush, providing clean air and habitat for wildlife. Mountain streams run colder and rivers run cleaner. Our views will be less cluttered when our children take their children on Sunday drives (in electric cars).

And it’s because of what you’re doing right now. So, good job! And look to your every-other-month issue of Land Savers to see us saying “thank you” more often.

Dave David Perry Executive Director

Welcome

The BRLC would like to welcome their newest staff member! Kacie Shifflett, a Rockbridge County, VA native, is the conservancy’s new Stewardship Specialist. Kacie has a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Hollins University and recently completed her thru hike of the Appalachian Trail. She is excited to expand her education in land conservation and to draw from her passion for the outdoors to help conserve land here in our region.

Says Kacie, “I am thrilled to be part of such an amazing team and to work with a community of people that has a common goal of protecting land. After hiking through a near continuous corridor of conserved and undeveloped land for almost 2,200 miles, I have a much deeper appreciation for what it means to landowners, the public, and wildlife to have sanctuaries of protected forests, fields, and waterways. I am so grateful to now be part of an organization that works every day to protect land and encourages others to do the same. I am excited to meet each of our landowners and to preserve land together.”