NorthWoods Stewardship Center was proud to welcome senior U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) to campus on Friday, August 5th, where he spoke to the crowd gathered for the annual Conservation Corps Season Celebration.Over 70 young people and their families were in attendance to hear the senator speak, celebrate the successful end of the 2016 season and participate in a friendly competition of Olympic-style field events. Over the course of the summer, eleven crews of young men and women, aged 15 to 20, were stationed on wildlife refuges and public trails across the northeast, completing improvements on land from Long Island Sound to northern Maine.
The Senator arrived midday as field events were wrapping up, and took a few moments to snap photos of the scenery before beginning to speak, appropriately, just as a bald eagle decided to soar over campus. The seniormost member of the U.S. Senate, Senator Leahy has been an advocate for environmental conservation throughout Vermont and across the United States for over forty years and is an ongoing supporter of conservation efforts in Lake Champlain and the upper Connecticut River watershed among others. In 1999, the Senator helped secure the establishment of the 26,000 acre Nulhegan Basin Division of the Silvio O. Conte National Wildlife Refuge, in Brunswick, VT, where NorthWoods youth crews have worked on trail improvements this summer and in years past.
NorthWoods Executive Director Judy Bevans said, “We are so glad Senator Leahy could join us in this celebration. The great work that was done this year and is accomplished every year by the NorthWoods Conservation Corps stands as a testament to robust environmental legislation and community support.”
The Senator spoke to the gathered crowd about the importance of working towards continued environmental conservation nationwide and thanked the NorthWoods Conservation Corps crew members and leaders in attendance for their hard work and service towards that shared goal.