Girl Scouts Volunteer at Indian Fort Nature Preserve

Hi, our names are Caroline Capel, Caroline Tallon, Emily Lamb, and Morgan Walton and we are members of Troop 51140 of Girls Scouts of Western New York and we have been working towards earning our Silver Award.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with the Silver Award, it is the highest award a Girl Scout Cadette can earn. The purpose of the Silver Award is for us to demonstrate that we are leaders who are organized, who persevere, and who are dedicated to improving our Geneseo community.

Our Silver Award project is to improve the accessibility of the nature trails at the Indian Fort Nature Preserve. We selected this project after spending time in quarantine and noticing that one of the ways that many people coped was to spend time in nature, walking on our local trails. We noticed in the springtime it can be challenging to walk on trails due to the amount of rain and mud at that time of year. Unfortunately, people tend to avoid the muddy areas of trails by walking around the mud and unintentionally widening the trail. We knew we wanted to do this project but knew we needed to ask for help so we reached out to Ben Gajewski, Genesee Valley Conservancy Executive Director. We pitched our proposal to build boardwalks at the preserve to Mr. Gajewski and he supported our idea in theory and monetarily.

It is important that our Silver Award project be sustainable. We accomplished sustainability by using pressure treated wood that will last many years. We also accomplished sustainability by our partnership with the Genesee Valley Conservancy. The Conservancy will maintain the boardwalks long past our involvement and they will continue to teach the “leave no trace” principle.

The “leave no trace” rule means when people use the trails, they leave the trails in the same condition as when they arrived. Our boardwalks support this “leave no trace” rule by protecting the surface of the trails during rough conditions to prevent walkers and hikers from widening the existing trail.

We are proud of our Silver Award Project. We hope each person that visits the trails at the Indian Fort Nature Preserve enjoys walking on our boardwalks and keeping their feet clean.