Woodie Wheaton Land Trust

2012 Presidents Letter - 2009 Presidents Letter

November 20, 2009

Dear Friends,

Thanks to your generous support the Woodie Wheaton Land Trust now has a home. (See the photo on our Home Page). The Woodie Wheaton Land Trust Center was officially dedicated last August at our annual meeting. We want to express our profound gratitude to all of you who made this possible. We simply could not have done it without you! If you have not already visited this beautiful new building, you should do so the next time you are in the Forest City area.

We still have a distance to go to finish furnishing and landscaping the building and pay off our line of credit. Please help us match the $25,000 C.F. Adams Charitable Trust new member challenge by December 31st of this year. Each contribution from a new member will be matched, dollar for dollar by the C.F. Adams Charitable Trust, until we raise $25,000 which will yield a total of $50,000 toward the cost of completing the construction and furnishing of the WWLT Center. To help us meet this challenge, please consider giving a gift of membership in the WWLT to someone you know who is not yet a member of WWLT. Of course, we welcome all gifts from current WWLT members as well!

Many of you enjoyed last summer’s inaugural speaker and field trip series. In the coming months, we plan to expand on this successful launch with a wider range of programs, including a collaboration with the East Grand School in Danforth.

In September, Executive Director Paul First decided to step down, taking a job closer to home. We wish Paul well in his new role as town planner in New Gloucester. In October, we welcomed Sigrid Pickering as our new executive director. Some of you may know her from her extensive conservation work in Maine and throughout the Northeast.

With your help, the Woodie Wheaton Land Trust continues to conserve important places in the Chiputneticook Lakes area so they will be there for us as well as future generations. We are currently exploring the potential for our most ambitious conservation project yet within the East Grand Watershed.

As this holiday season approaches, we hope you will make a special effort to recognize our 15 years of accomplishments, and help us wrap up the building campaign so we can pursue a promising future. Please give as generously as you can to help us grow into our new home. As a nonprofit organization, contributions to the Woodie Wheaton Land Trust are tax-deductible.

Thank you and have a wonderful holiday season!

With best regards,

Elbridge C. Cleaves, President