ATHOL — The Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust’s spring appeal has inched it closer to its goal of raising $115,000 by the end of its fiscal year.
An anonymous $25,000 challenge grant, which will match five gifts or pledges of $5,000 or more made by today, Wednesday, has subsidized the trust’s goal. Since that challenge last week, Mount Grace has received three pledges of $5,000 and needs two more to meet the challenge. Pledges must be in writing. To make a gift to the spring appeal, visit mountgrace.org and click the “DONATE NOW!” button, or postmark your envelope by May 31.
Kristina Stinson, a professor with the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s environmental conservation department, conserved 54 acres of woods surrounding her Wendell through support from Mount Grace this spring. The Stinson conservation restriction, which is co-held by Mount Grace and Wendell, encourages continued educational use of the land. She has frequently used her land, which connects other conserved lands to the Wendell State Forest, as a natural lab for ecology research.
Mount Grace Executive Director Leigh Youngblood thanked everyone from local people and businesses to tourists and visitors have pitched in to help the spring appeal, in a press release.
“What most people don’t realize is that the state and federal grants that help landowners actually provide zero or little income to the land trust,” she said in a statement. “In this extraordinary year, Mount Grace is working to wrap up three landscape-scale projects in Montague and Wendell; in Athol, Barre, Petersham, Phillipston, Hubbardston, Westminster, and Princeton; and in Gardner and Winchendon. By May 31, we will have protected 2,400 acres of forests and farmland in the last 12 months.”
Everyone is also invited to join the celebration of the Mormon Hollow project at the Party in the Hollow on June 4. Tickets can be purchased at mountgrace.org.