I am pleased to tell you that we have received a new grant from the J. A. Woollam Foundation to help fund a 40-acre purchase as the third phase of our plans to acquire 162 acres of land at Hall’s Lake. The Woollam Foundation, a private philanthropic foundation based in Lincoln, Nebraska, has awarded a dollar-for-dollar matching grant up to $15,000.00, for all contributions made to the Hall’s Lake Land Acquisition Project in 2013. We are very grateful to the Woollam Foundation for this support of our work at Hall’s Lake. They have been major partners with us in this on-going effort.
As many of you know, we began the project to permanently preserve the area with the purchase of a 22-acre parcel, called the Neely Preserve, in 2008, at a cost of $65,000.00. A pair of $60,000.00 challenge grants from the J. A. Woollam Foundation and the Carls Foundation helped raise the $210,000.00 purchase price to acquire an adjoining 100 acres, now called the Kabana Preserve last year. We have a purchase agreement to acquire the final 40 acre parcel by the end of this year. In the meantime, trails, benches and interpretive signage extend from the Neely and Kabana Preserves throughout the adjoining parcel, permitting public access to the entire 162 acres for nature walks and hiking while the acquisition effort continues.
For the third year, we will be conducting a series of educational walks, dubbed “Fourth Thursday at Hall’s Lake,” from May through September. The walks, led by subject matter experts on various nature related topics, begin at 9 a.m. on the fourth Thursday of the month, from the end of Fowler Drive at Hall’s Lake.
This grant, coupled with a $21,000.00 lead grant from the Rollin M. Gerstacker Foundation, puts us well on our way to raising the $93,000.00 appraised price to complete the project.
We need your continued help to complete the drive to make the Hall’s Lake Natural Area a reality. With the support of the Woollam Foundation, $15,000.00 of your contributions will become $30,000.00. Please consider sending a tax-deductible contribution to CWC, P.O. Box 896, Mt. Pleasant, MI 48804-0896, and mark it “Hall’s Lake.”
Thank you for all you have done to bring us to this point. Stan
