Diana Kern meets with guests at Lenawee event

On a rainy day in February, Legacy staff and board members headed to Adrian for our first-ever Lenawee County Meet & Greet event.

In a room filled with both familiar and brand-new faces, it was rejuvenating to finally start meeting the people who live and work in our newest community and hear what’s important to them. While we’ve been working in the River Raisin Watershed area for years now, officially expanding into Lenawee paves the way for deepening our conservation commitment to the community.

Lenawee is home to both rich farm land and a large portion of the River Raisin, which drains into the Lake Erie basin. By focusing land conservation efforts here, we’ll be able to make a positive impact on the water quality of both the local watershed and our beloved Great Lakes watershed.

In 2021, Legacy Land Conservancy’s Board of Trustees voted to formally add Lenawee County to our service area, which now officially spans three counties in southern Michigan: Lenawee, Washtenaw, and Jackson. Since then, we’ve been actively getting to know the locals, as well as working hand-in-hand with the Raisin Valley Land Trust (RVLT) to assume thirteen of their conservation easements as the organization dissolves. We have already closed on six of the easements, and this year we plan on bringing the final seven into the Legacy family. Our journey into Lenawee County is just beginning!

A special thank you to the Americana Foundation, whose support funded Legacy’s outreach work in Lenawee County during the last year, and the Lenawee Community Foundation, who lent us their community meeting space for our Meet & Greet!