Western Pennsylvania Conservancy Daily e-Calendar

Western Pennsylvania Conservancy (WPC) would like to extend a warm welcome to our newly trained class of volunteers. The sixth annual land steward volunteer orientation training was held August 27th to 29th at Lake Pleasant and was an absolute success. Pictured today is a group photograph from the training. Of the sixteen participants, nine were from Erie or Edinboro and seven were from Allegheny County. In spite of the rainy weekend, volunteers enjoyed another year at Lake Pleasant camping, eating, boating, fishing and learning about WPC and stewardship.

Many resource conservation staff provided their time, energy and expertise in preparation for the training weekend and during the training. I would like to give a special thank you to veteran land steward volunteers Bill Sayles, Harry Morrison and Deane Lavender. Bill, Harry and Deane all volunteered their time to help prep for the training, to train volunteers orienteering and to assist them during their group exercises. Without a doubt, the return of these land steward volunteers made the training a true success!

The Land Steward Volunteer Program was implemented in 1998 to augment staff capacity to monitor and implement management activities. Land Steward voluneers are conservation leaders who devote themselves to monitoring and managing WPC conserved lands. After undergoing rigorous training, land steward volunteers serve as our eyes and ears, as well as WPC Ambassadors to the surrounding communities. Trained land steward volunteers complete regular monitoring visits of an assigned tract of land, they document existing land condition and any threats, assist with property maintenance and resource management issues, and provide a WPC presence on the land. There are currently 79 land steward volunteers helping to maintain WPC conserved lands across western Pennsylvania.

Doris Allen	Matt Franz	Carl Harting	Mary Nelson
Robert Allen	Vicci Franz	Budd Luce	James Schwartz
Louanne Barton	John Giovengo	Christine Mangan	Don Snyder
Jim Barton	Tim Grant	Ed Masteller	Bob Volkmar