Grow Native! Native By Design: Community Conservation Workshop

EDWARDSVILLE, IL – Register by March 1 to attend the Grow Native! Native By Design: Community Conservation workshop at Lewis and Clark Community College in Edwardsville, Illinois.

Featured speakers will explore the following questions: How can we use community-level planning to conserve existing natural communities? How can we bring the public along in these efforts? How can we integrate our native landscaping projects into communities to combat nature deficit disorder?

Ronda Burnett, community conservation planner with the Missouri Department of Conservation and chair of the Grow Native! Committee, will be the keynote speaker, presenting on how community conservation planning practices can increase the benefits of nature in cities as well as decrease the negative impacts of human communities on the natural world. The keynote talk will set the stage for plenary speakers Sara McGibany, Debbie Newman, Joann Fricke, Sarah Burton, and Eric Wright, who will share their experiences in protecting natural communities and establishing native landscapes around the southwestern Illinois region.

“In this 7th year of offering the Native by Design Workshop, we wanted to focus on community building and conservation. We’ll be highlighting the successes of local leaders in creating and stewarding beautiful, sustainable native landscapes, and they’ll share how they got their communities involved in the process,” said Nate Keener, Director of Sustainability at Lewis and Clark Community College.

The morning workshop will be held from 8 a.m. to noon. A breakfast buffet will be provided, open at 7:30 a.m. Registration, including breakfast is $30 per person or $25 per person for MPF members and Grow Native! professional members, and $15 for students with a valid student ID.

WHEN: Friday, March 10, 2023, 7:30 a.m.-12 p.m.
WHERE: LeClaire Room at Lewis and Clark Community College, NO Nelson Campus
600 Troy Rd., Edwardsville, IL 62025
Registration: $30 (for non-members), includes breakfast; $25 (for MPF and Grow Native! Professional members, includes breakfast; $15 (for students with valid ID, includes breakfast)
Register at Grow Native! Native By Design: Community Conservation by March 1, 2023.

Grow Native! is the 23-year-old native plant marketing and education program of the nonprofit Missouri Prairie Foundation, a 57-year-old conservation organization and land trust. The goals of Grow Native! are to increase the supply of and demand for plants native to the lower Midwest for use in developed landscapes—cities, farms, home landscaping, and more.

CONTACT: Nate Keener at (618) 468-2782,  nkeener@lc.edu

More info: https://grownative.org/event/grow-native-native-by-design-community-conservation/