This past Wednesday, I attended the Rose Scholars Cafe with guest speaker Andy Zepp. Andy Zepp is the director of the Finger Lakes Land Trust here in Ithaca. The focus of his talk was about the Finger Lakes Land Trust and the purpose of conserving land.
I found this Cafe to be very interesting. More specifically, I really enjoyed how Andy gave us an inside view of how the Finger Lakes Land Trust is run. I did not know that most of their funding came from fund raising. With all of the land that they own, their fund raising has to be extremely successful. Andy talked about his philosophy when it comes to fund raising and that is that you will not be successful just going door to door, asking strangers for money. In order to fund raise effectively, you have to cultivate a relationship with donors over a long period of time. I think that this philosophy can be applied to any situation that requires one to receive help from others.
Overall, I enjoyed this Rose Cafe. I liked listening to how why it is important to conserve land and how this conserved land is used. Without the many workers and volunteers at the Finger Lakes Land Trust, Ithaca may not be the same, beautiful place it is today.
Yeah! Learning about how the Finger lakes Land Trust was certainly interesting, but I think what was missing from the talk was how we could get involved. It seems like a benefit not only to the community, but also to the environment.