Giving Tuesday Starts Annual Campaign

The Alice Zawadzki Fund Bolsters NCNPS Conservation Efforts

By Kelly Gage and Debra Murray

Giving Tuesday is November 28, your opportunity to help preserve sensitive mountain peaks, beautiful wildflower meadows, and other native habitats before they are lost. Give to the NCNPS Zawadzki Land Conservation Fund by Dec 31 2023, and your donations will be used to permanently protect wild lands. Keep reading to learn more – who was Alice, what does the fund do, what can I do to help?

Zizia, Zephyranthes & Zawadzki

Don’t worry, we aren’t about to quiz you on those confounding scientific plant names! In fact one of these things is not like the others. Need a hint? Only two of these are native plants and the third is a very important person to the NC Native Plant Society. For those who didn’t know her or her endless supply of colorful hats, Alice Zawadzki was a long-time member of NCNPS and served as president from 2002–2006.

After retiring from teaching chemistry, Alice turned to her passion, protecting North Carolina’s rich and diverse natural habitats. She worked tirelessly with conservation-minded organizations like NCNPS, Friends of Plant Conservation, and Friends of State Parks to conserve native plants. She remembered the NCNPS in her estate planning, and upon her death, the Society used her gift to establish the Alice Zawadzki Land Conservation Fund.

Since 2017, NCNPS has awarded $42,570 in grants from the Zawadzki Fund. These grants helped conserve 7,389 acres of land, including some tracts with rare and threatened species, and numerous plant communities from cypress-gum swamps and Longleaf Pine savanna to hickory forests, rich coves, and granite outcroppings. Many headwaters with exceptional water quality are also permanently protected, such as Big Elkin Creek, Little Fisher River, and Johns River.

Below are two examples of land that NCNPS helped conserve. We think Alice would be pleased.

*A beautiful view of the Salters Creek property that NCNPS helped conserve in 2019 with a grant from the Zawadzki Fund. Photo courtesy of Coastal Land Trust*

Preserving Salters Creek land along the coast

The NC Coastal Land Trust permanently conserves more than 5,400 acres of pristine land along Salters Creek, including 17 miles of the meandering creek. For a unique property this large, the trust pulled together many funding sources, including the NCNPS Zawadzki Fund. Located adjacent to Cedar Island National Wildlife Refuge, the Salters Creek tract contains estuarine marshes, pocosins, and Longleaf Pine forest. Rated as having exceptional ecological significance, the site provides habitat for 23 rare plant and animal species, including the Black Rail, a small marsh bird proposed for listing under the Federal Endangered Species Act. The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission will manage a large portion of the property with prescribed burns, and the remaining portion will be maintained as a nature preserve.

*The Jonas Ridge cranberry bog in winter, which was permanently protected in 2020. Photo courtesy of Foothills Conservancy*

A rare and sensitive plant community is protected with the help of a grant from the Zawadzki Fund to Foothills Conservancy, which purchased 17 acres in Burke County that contain wetlands and a cranberry bog. This property is part of Jonas Ridge Wetlands Natural Area, a high-quality Southern Appalachian bog community with several threatened plants and insects. The purchase also protects a riparian buffer along Joe Branch, headwaters of the Upper Creek, a stream rated with exceptional water quality. Burke County will eventually own the property, and conservation easements will allow passive use and scientific education.

A view of Fisher Peak in Surry County, a property NCNPS helped conserve with a grant from its Alice Zawadzki Land Conservation Fund. Photo courtesy of Piedmont Land Conservancy

Supporting the Zawadzki Fund

This year NCNPS will continue its support of land conservancy by dedicating our annual fundraising campaign to the Zawadzki Fund.

Our campaign kicks off on Giving Tuesday, November 28, 2023, and runs through December 31, 2023. Throughout the campaign, we will highlight grants from the Zawadzki Fund.

Donating is simple. You will receive emails throughout the campaign reminding you to donate with a simple click of the button. Just log in to NCNPS and hit the Donate tab.

Did you know that NCNPS is a 501(c)(3) non-profit and your donations are tax deductible? In addition, your employer may have a matching donor program. Please contact your employer to find out if they will match your contribution.

And finally, like Alice, please consider NCNPS in your estate planning. Through her generous donation, we have helped preserve land containing diverse habitats, pristine streams, and rare or threatened plant species, meeting one of the key initiatives of NCNPS: conservation.

The Grants & Scholarships Committee looks forward to working with every member of NCNPS during our annual capital campaign. We hope you will consider giving generously as we work together collectively to conserve the natural wonders of our home state.

By Kelly Gage and Debra Murray
Native Plant News – Fall 2023

Kelly Gage is a NCNPS Board Member-at-Large and chairs the Membership Committee. As a member of the Triad Chapter, she gardens on six acres in Guilford County. In addition, Kelly is a biologist who worked in Environmental Management Enforcement in North Carolina.

Debra Murray is chairperson of the Grants & Scholarships Committee of the NC Native Plant Society. The committee reviews grant proposals for student research (Tom and Bruce Shinn Fund), community projects (B.W. Wells Stewardship Fund), and land conservation (Alice Zawadzki Land Conservation Fund).