Summer Benefit 2022

Approximately 415 people gathered at Nat’s Farm, in West Tisbury, on Monday, July 18, for the Sheriff’s Meadow Summer Benefit. The following lightly edited remarks were made by SMF Executive Director Adam Moore.

Adam Moore:

Adam Moore Welcome! Welcome back!

I’m Adam Moore, I am the president of Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation, and it is my pleasure to welcome you to the 2022 Summer Benefit! Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation is the land trust for the island of Martha’s Vineyard.

Our mission is to conserve the natural, beautiful, rural landscape and character of Martha’s Vineyard for present and future generations. What we do at Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation is simple: We save land, we take care of the land, and we foster a love of nature.

What we do is made possible entirely because of your support. Tonight, to you, our supporters, we say thank you. We are gathered tonight in the area of the Island known as Takemmy, in the town of West Tisbury, on a property called Nat’s Farm. On December 28, 1990, Leona Baumgartner Langmuir gave this beautiful land, 50 acres in size, to Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation for its permanent conservation. She also gave a Conservation Restriction to the town of West Tisbury and worked closely with the Vineyard Open Land Foundation to create a thoughtful subdivision.

We have been partners in conservation ever since with our neighbors, and especially with Misty Meadows—first under the ownership of Carol and Jerry Kenney—and then the Misty Meadows Equine Learning Center. We are gathered on land that Sheriff’s Meadow leases to the Misty Meadows Equine Learning Center…

I would like to offer a few additional thank you’s. First, I would like to thank our Summer Benefit Committee and especially our Committee Chair, Ellen Harley. I thank Lil Province and Nancy Randall for the beautiful flower arrangements. I thank our volunteers and staff, especially Catherine Hall. I thank all of the past hosts of our Summer Benefit.

Would anyone like to host us in 2023?

Finally, I thank all of our sponsors, donors, and ticket purchasers!

We have just finished a great year. We completed a five-year strategic plan.

We welcomed Tom Hallahan and Catherine Hall to our staff. We congratulate Susan Hughes on her retirement!

With our partners at the Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank, we completed a management plan for Squibnocket Pond Reservation and submitted that plan to the Commonwealth for review. We expect approval, and we plan to open the property to the public in 2023. We upgraded the TrailsMV app. For the new app, I thank Chris Seidel and the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, Project Manager Nancy Tutko, Alan Rappaport for his vision, and all of our financial sponsors and contributors.

We completed our For Future Generations campaign. Thanks to the campaign to conserve Squibnocket Pond Reservation, and to generous donations of land, we raised more than double our goal.

In the coming year:

• We will open Squibnocket Pond Reservation to the public.
• We will create a universal access trail at Huckleberry Barrens.
• We will open a new trailhead and trail at Caroline Tuthill Preserve.
• We will implement our plan for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
• We will begin work on a maintenance barn.
• And we will conserve more land.

Conserving land takes time. It takes patience. And it takes sustaining relationships between landowning families and land conservation organizations.

Tonight, it is my great honor to introduce to you a man who exemplifies the relationships between families and Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation that results in conserving land forever. Peter Getsinger and his family have given land to Sheriff’s Meadow. Their relationship with Sheriff’s Meadow spans decades and spans generations. Peter, we are grateful to you, and to your family, for all that you have done for conservation and for Sheriff’s Meadow.