SCT Preserve Maintenance Appeal

P.O. Box 531, East Sandwich, MA 02537

(508) 888-7629 www.sandwichconservationtrust.org

SCT PRESERVE MAINTENANCE APPEAL 

September, 2017

Dear Members and Friends,

Early fall greetings to you, and I hope that within your busy lifestyle you’ve had a chance
to spend some quality time outdoors in Nature, whether in your backyard, or in one of the many great conservation lands in Sandwich. Walking or quiet contemplation in the woods or marsh edge can be a wonderful antidote to many ills! The Sandwich Conservation Trust does its best to preserve and maintain natural areas for you to enjoy.

For this particular letter, the word “maintain” serves as a theme. In the earlier part of our 32 year existence, it may be that “acquisition” was our predominant theme – we wanted to fulfill our purpose of acquiring and preserving land, and we have been reasonably successful – we own 23 parcels totaling 84 acres and hold eight conservation restrictions on privately owned pieces totaling 140 acres - 224 acres of protected land in Sandwich.

Among our holdings are four upland preserves with parking areas and trail systems: Joe’s Woods (Roos Rd.), Elinor’s Woods (Plowed Neck Rd.), Toolas Preserve (Great Island Rd.), and the Osborne-Sherman Conservation Lands (Gully Lane). The last two feature beautiful fields. The Maruca and Ray conservation restrictions are accessible for public use and have extensive trails. I’m sure you can see where I’m going – to keep these fields and trail systems accessible and useful for public enjoyment and recreation we need to maintain them with hand and power tools, tractor and chainsaw.

We are fortunate to have a few volunteers, but members of our Board of Trustees handle much of the trimming and mowing, and occasionally we hire a contractor to help us out when we lack the manpower. The summer of 2017 has been lovely, but the abundant rains seem to have doubled the amount of maintenance needed.

In 2016 the SCT held a special appeal for improvements at the Osborne-Sherman preserve, and you helped us! 42 donors sent over $4000, and we got the work done. With this letter, I’m asking if you can help us again, with the specific goal of maintaining our preserves. We are asking for two kinds of help: financial, for those times when we have to hire a tractor, and, if you can do it, your time with hand tools. Walking a trail with loppers makes a big difference, and it’s not heavy work.

We want to build a group of volunteers who could be called upon once or twice a year for some special project. We have such a list started, but we are finding that people are busy and can’t always respond, therefore we want to increase the numbers of volunteers we can call upon.

Would you please consider helping the SCT maintain its publicly accessible preserves by sending a tax- deductible donation? Could you volunteer to help with trail maintenance?

A return envelope is provided with this mailing. If you wish to volunteer please call vice president Joe Queenan at (508) 833-0861. Thank you!

Sincerely,
John N. Cullity President