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Are you creating or updating your will?

Providing for your family and favorite causes (and, perhaps, ensuring that less goes to “Uncle Sam” in taxes) are important personal considerations when making your legacy plans. We hope that caring for nature is on your list too. By including the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy in your estate plans, you can help people enjoy nature — whether in a stream or forest, in passing a community garden on a drive, or by experiencing Fallingwater — as a part of your legacy.

That is why Richard and Marie Ulsh of Johnstown, longtime WPC members and volunteer land stewards, added the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy to their estate plans.

The Ulshes “trust the Conservancy’s leadership to achieve the greatest impact possible” with their unrestricted support. You may, like the Ulshes, choose to leave your bequest unrestricted or designate it for a program of particular interest. We will be pleased to talk through ideas with you now to ensure your ultimate legacy matches what is most important to you.

A variety of gift planning tools can be found on our website at WaterLandLife.org/60/planned-giving. For more information, please contact Carey Scheide Miller, director of development, at 412-586-2356 or cmiller@paconserve.org.

If you have already included the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy in your estate plans, thank you! Please take a moment to let us know by contacting us directly.

In This Issue:

• Message from the President

  • This issue of Conserve examines how the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy works with rural communities across our region. Western Pennsylvania’s rural areas host many of our magnificent natural resources and also contribute to the unique character of our region... Click here to read more

• WPC Updates its Strategic Plan
  • As 2011 drew to a close, so did the third year of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy’s three-year strategic plan. Specific accomplishments of the 2009–2011 plan will be highlighted in the 2011 Annual Report, which will be published this summer...Click here to read more
• WPC Helps Rural Communities Protect Rivers and Streams
  • Keeping waterways clean while keeping farms productive is a top priority for the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. WPC’s Watershed Conservation Program helps agricultural producers implement best management practices that reduce sedimentation, nutrient overload and other impacts to the region’s rivers and streams... Click here to read more
• The Kaufmann Family Farm at Bear Run
  • In addition to building a department store empire and a house over a waterfall that became instantly famous, Edgar J. Kaufmann was also a gentlemen farmer and avid horseman. Kaufmann pursued this interest by buying neighboring farms and hiring local residents to manage his 1,500-acre property at Bear Run as a working country estate...Click here to read more
• A Family Farm Receives Upgrades with WPC Support
  • For many years, the Dilts’ dairy farm in Indiana, Pa. flooded regularly, and their cows had open access to the nearby stream, neither of which was beneficial to the livestock or the stream. With the help of the Conservancy’s Watershed Conservation Program, the Dilts were able to make improvements that resolved those problems and enhanced the water quality of the local watershed...Click here to read more
• Agricultural Easements Key Tool for Preserving Farmlands
  • The Western Pennsylvania Conservancy uses private contributions and federal support to help farmers maintain ownership of their property in exchange for agreeing to restrict the lands’ future uses to farming or sustainable forestry. These permanent deed restrictions, called agricultural easements, provide an effective way to help families keep their farms in operation while also ensuring that the land is permanently conserved...Click here to read more
• Federal Farm Bill Up for Renewal in 2012
  • Conservation programs included in the federal Food, Conservation, and Energy Act or “farm bill” provide funding that allows the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy to help protect farms and forestlands. Because of this direct connection to our work, the Conservancy has been encouraging Pennsylvania’s Congressional delegation to ensure that the bill’s five-year reauthorization in 2012 includes strong conservation and forestry components, despite a very tight fiscal situation...Click here to read more
• Colcom Loan Fund Helps Protect
  Key Riverfront Property
  • The Western Pennsylvania Conservancy’s Colcom Revolving Fund for Local Land Trusts recently helped a community group in its efforts to create a riverfront park and future trail connection...Click here to read more
• WPC Creates Outdoor Green
  Spaces at Public Schools
  • Living classrooms and other outdoor green spaces installed at 55 Pittsburgh public schools over the past four years through the Conservancy’s School Grounds Greening Program have added new dimensions to students’ educational experiences. Thanks to a $1.5-million grant from the Grable Foundation and other financial support, WPC’s staff designed a specific plan for each school, geared to meet the particular needs of the site and its students, and implemented the new landscaping...Click here to read more
• Field Notes
  • May is one of my favorite months. So much in nature is awakening and engaging in the growing season, so time outside on one evening in May turned out to be a treat for me. On this day, the spring clouds were dark and the wind was strong. I knew that if I did not cover the garden soil I had just prepared, it would make planting the vegetable seeds impossible. I had to find something to cover the soil from the rain...Click here to read more
• Are you creating or updating your will?
  • Providing for your family and favorite causes (and, perhaps, ensuring that less goes to “Uncle Sam” in taxes) are important personal considerations when making your legacy plans. We hope that caring for nature is on your list too. By including the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy in your estate plans, you can help people enjoy nature — whether in a stream or forest, in passing a community garden on a drive, or by experiencing Fallingwater — as a part of your legacy...Click here to read more