The Virginia Outdoors Foundation (VOF) today announced $1,772,888 in grants for 8 open-space conservation projects.
The grants were awarded from VOF’s Preservation Trust Fund, which provides grants for the protection of open space for farming, forestry, recreation, wildlife, water quality, and more. To learn more about VOF’s grant programs, visit https://www.vof.org/protect/grants/.
Grantee: Albemarle County
Project Title: Biscuit Run Acquisition
Locality: Albemarle County
Grant Amount: $160,000.00
Description: Albemarle County seeks grant funding to purchase a 16.3-acre property adjoining Biscuit Run Park on two sides. This acquisition will permanently expand the park to over 1,200 acres while enabling Albemarle County to establish, operate, and maintain a long-planned, off-site public-access greenway trail between the park, multiple residential neighborhoods, and the Rivanna Trail. The mature, forested, steep slopes upstream from the Avon Swamp natural heritage site will be permanently conserved.
Grantee: American Battlefield Trust
Project Title: Goddard Tract at Elthams Landing
Locality: New Kent County
Grant Amount: $176,037.50
Description: The American Battlefield Trust seeks to preserve the 51.98-acre Goddard Tract in New Kent County via purchase and recordation of a conservation easement to be held by the Virginia Board of Historic Resources. The Goddard Tract is located entirely within the Core Area of the Elthams Landing Battlefield, a Priority III.4 (Class D) battlefield as defined by the 1993 Civil War Sites Advisory Commission Report on the Nation’s Civil War Battlefields.
Grantee: Friends of Dragon Run, Inc.
Project Title: Teta Kain Preserve: Access, Protect, and Steward
Locality: Middlesex County
Grant Amount: $47,350.00
Description: The Friends of Dragon Run, Inc., (FODR) is requesting funds for the purchase of an open space easement to be held by the Virginia Outdoors Foundation on the Teta Kain Nature Preserve, permanently protecting outstanding natural communities including bald cypress swamp. The Preserve will be accessible to the public every day from dawn to dusk. The funds received from the purchase of the easement will be used to establish a land management fund, building FODR’s capacity to steward this and other conserved lands in the Dragon Run watershed for biodiversity and the scenic, place-based educational, and recreational enjoyment of local communities.
Grantee: Joseph McGuire Edwards
Project Title: Meadows Farm
Locality: Southampton County
Grant Amount: $250,000.00
Description: These funds will be used for the purchase of an open space easement. Meadows Farm is located on the state scenic Blackwater River and contains 233 acres of farmland, 93.3 acres of which are United States Department of Agriculture designated prime farmland soils. The property contains Cypress-Tupelo wetlands which support a wide variety of habitat along with 7,400 feet of frontage on the Blackwater River which drains to the Albemarle-Pamlico Sound Estuary.
Grantee: Monacan Indian Nation
Project Title: Monacan Indian Nation – Snead Property
Locality: Amherst County
Grant Amount: $300,000.00
Description: This proposal submitted by the Monacan Indian Nation is for land acquisition and protection on Bear Mountain in Amherst County, which has been the home of the Monacan people for more than 10,000 years and remains the cultural hub of the community. The Monacan Indian Nation is a federally recognized tribe with over 2,600 citizens. This project would allow the Nation to acquire and protect 339.4 forested acres, preserving at least four cemeteries, several historical settlements, and most importantly connecting all of the Nation’s holdings on Bear Mountain for stewardship and management.
Grantee: Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation
Project Title: Pappas Tract – Fisher’s Hill Battlefield
Locality: Shenandoah County
Grant Amount: $300,000.00
Description: This proposal is for the purchase of an open space easement to be held by the Virginia Board of Historic Resources. The Pappas Tract, south of the town of Strasburg, is actively being preserved by the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation because of its significance to the Fisher’s Hill (September 22, 1864) and Cedar Creek Battlefield (October 19, 1864).
Grantee: Tadpole Land and Trail Conservancy
Project Title: Crutchfield-Diggs Nature Area
Locality: Fluvanna County
Grant Amount: $239,500.00
Description: This proposed purchase of an open space easement will protect a property given to the Tadpole Land and Trail Conservancy in 2024 as a nature area by donors whose family had owned the land for generations. The property, which will be open to the public, is forested with 6,000 feet of scenic streams, a historic cemetery, and an old house site. An existing road through the woods provides immediate access for the public. Wildflowers and wetlands add interest to a property identified by conservation models as containing important habitat.
Grantee: Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources
Project Title: Cumberland Outdoor Access Legacy
Localities: Buchanan, Dickenson, Russell, and Wise Counties
Grant Amount: $300,000.00
Description: This easement acquisition, in the heart of Appalachia, presents an extraordinary opportunity to provide new public access for recreational boating, fishing, wildlife viewing, hiking, nature-based photography, and hunting, as well as to improve restored mined lands to support elk and a myriad of other wildlife species that use a matrix of forested and open grassland habitats in this historically economically depressed and socially vulnerable region of Virginia.
