by Michael Smith
Audubon announced that the new TogetherGreen Fellowships that have recently been awarded to forty of the nation’s most promising conservationists.
A Gainesville, Florida woman is the recipient of a new national fellowship designed to advance the work of individuals with outstanding potential to help shape a brighter environmental future.
Jennifer Seitz, who has been involved in conservation efforts for over a decade, is one of only 40 people selected from competitors nationwide for the TogetherGreen Conservation Leadership Program, part of a new conservation initiative of the National Audubon Society with support from Toyota.
Fellows receive specialized training in conservation planning and execution, the chance to work and share best practices with gifted conservation professionals, and assistance with project outreach and evaluation. Each Fellow will also receive $10,000 towards a community-focused project to engage local residents in conserving land, water and energy, and contributing to greater environmental health.
Seitz will focus her efforts on working with community members in a predominantly black Gainesville neighborhood that enjoys significantly fewer green spaces and tree cover than the rest of the city. Through her project, she’ll talk with residents to find out what kinds of green spaces they’d like to have and then work with them to determine how best to create and maintain them. Seitz feels passionately that all Gainesville residents should be able to enjoy the benefits of tree cover and vegetation in their neighborhoods – shade, air purification, beauty, and more.
The efforts of the Fellows will aid people and wildlife around 39 cities in 24 different states – a full list can be found at http://www.togethergreen.org/fellows.
May we but hope that the work of the fellows will be appreciated by those in whose neighborhood they work and that their work will encourage others to join them in their work or to work on projects of their own to aid people and the environment.
Together we can make a difference but so can an individual. Each and every one of us, in his or her corner, can make a difference; more so though combined with others of like mind.
© M Smith (Veshengro), December 2008
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Audubon announces TogetherGreen Fellowships
