Conservation Breakthrough

The Virginia Outdoors Foundation last month awarded Boxerwood $270,600 from its Preservation Trust Fund. This grant will help Boxerwood purchase and permanently protect ten acres of woods and field that border the woodland garden. That leaves just $140K to raise before this land goes on the market. 

The Preservation Trust Fund was created to help communities protect open space across the Commonwealth, for wildlife, water quality, farming, and forestry, and especially for public access. It’s a competitive program, and most awards land well under our total. 

That VOF chose to invest this much in a small yet costly project like ours says a lot about what Boxerwood means to this community — and the community said so, too. Our application carried a stack of letters of support from Rockbridge County staff, Rockbridge Conservation, Rockbridge Outdoors, the Rockbridge Master Gardeners, our local tourism office, and many more: conservationists, birders, trail builders, health advocates, neighbors. To everyone who took the time to write: thank you. 

So what does this mean for Boxerwood? Practically, the garden grows by about half. The new acreage will be added to Boxerwood’s existing conservation easement so the land stays open and wild in perpetuity, and because the easement will include expanded public access, it will be open to all.

Here’s how we imagine using it: new walking trails connecting to the existing garden paths, outdoor learning spaces for the hundreds of Rockbridge schoolchildren who visit each year; a forested buffer protecting water that drains to Woods Creek and on to the Maury; habitat restoration projects with students and volunteers. Some of this will take years to unfold, and that’s part of the joy.

A grant this size is a great start, but it doesn’t cover the whole purchase. Many of you have already given gifts set aside for this opportunity, and that local support is a big part of why VOF said yes. We still have about $140,000 to raise to close the gap. 

If you’d like to help put Boxerwood’s newest land into permanent protection, please contact Ben Eland at ben@boxerwood.org or visit https://boxerwood.monkeypod.io/give/cc.