Pumpkin Carving for Serpentine Restoration!
On Saturday night, Soldiers Delight Conservation, Inc, the Friends group for Soldiers Delight Conservation, Inc., held its annual pumpkin-carving fundraiser for Soldiers Delight Natural Environment Area, an exquisite but fragile ecosystem that is constantly threatened with being overtaken by invasive vegetation. Our fundraisers seek to supplement the Maryland Wildlife and Heritage Department's Serpentine Ecosystem Restoration Program with badly needed financing to help rout out invasive species-- plus this event is always loads of fun!
Our vice president, Lynell Tobler, and longtime Soldiers Delight volunteer, Jesse Turner, spent several hours Saturday morning transforming the auditorium at the Soldiers Delight Visitor Center into a veritable pumpkin-carving paradise, complete with stencil patterns, design ideas, carving utensils and even candles for the grand finalé. Who wouldn't want to carve a pumpkin in a place where you didn't have to worry about cleaning up the mess afterward?
Busy families got right to work choosing a pattern, transferring the design to their gourd and carving their jack-o-lanterns. Pictured are Patricia and Dale Houston of Pikesville with their 16-year-old son, Jeremiah. Jeremiah is donating his service-learning hours this school-year to conservation efforts at Soldiers Delight by creating tweets, Facebook posts and YouTube videos for and about the habitat and our conservation efforts. He took lots of photos and video-footage of our fundraiser and intends to make a short film for SDCI. He is quite a talented young man!
Volunteer Jesse Turner wore a pumpkin-themed hat and shirt to carve his jack-o-lantern. Jesse has been volunteering with SDCI for almost 20 years! We appreciate his efforts very much.
Fraser and Suzie Bishop, from Finksburg, Maryland, hadn't carved pumpkins in ages, but they certainly got into the spirit of the occasion! Back in the 1980s, Fraser was the ranger in charge of Soldiers Delight. He was a loyal and fierce protector of Soldiers Delight's rare species for many years.
SDCI Board member Melissa Schehlein wanted her front porch greeter to encourage everyone to vote in the upcoming election. A diehard conservationist, Melissa heads SDCI's social media outreach and is a talented crochetier.
SDCI vice president Lynell Tobler helmed the event, carving a fierce face into her pumpkin. Lynell has served on the SDCI board of directors since 2004 and has been its vice president since 2007.
After dark, we took our jack-o-lanterns outside and photographed them in all their glowing wonder. Although not as large a turnout as we'd hoped for, our fundraising event was an absolute blast. All lovers and patrons of Soldiers Delight, the happy participants carved pumpkins, made new friends, and shared a wonderful evening together.
Patapsco Valley State Park Open House!
Read all about the fun day SDCI enjoyed on Saturday, March 26th at Patapsco Valley State Park's annual open house!
Grant Awarded to Soldiers Delight!
The board of directors of Soldiers Delight Conservation, Inc. is extremely pleased to announce that our nonprofit was awarded a grant today from Conquest Graphics in Richmond, Virginia. The grant is in the form of $1,000.00 worth of printing services free from Conquest.
Conquest Graphics, one of the largest and oldest privately-held printing companies in the nation and a fourth-generation family business, has served all our printing needs since 2018. We have found them to be personable, responsive and easy to do business with. They do high-quality work at a reasonable price, which is so critical to a small, all-volunteer operation like ours that runs solely on donations from the public (and the occasional grant).
SDCI was awarded the grant based on the number of votes our nonprofit received in a contest held by Conquest Graphics throughout the course of 2021. This grant comes at a good time for SDCI, as we are in need of new brochures and other printed material.
We appreciate the folks at Conquest Graphics for making this competition available and we especially appreciate all the people who voted for us!
Changes to our website
We are in the process of making some changes to our site. You may have already noticed some changes to our main menu.
A significant part of the upgrade will involve the creation of new areas of content so we can provide more information about the unique ecosystem that is Soldiers Delight Natural Environment Area. Most of these areas are present but not yet complete. Other changes involve fixes to a few things that are broken and a slight reorganization of site in general.
If you find anything about the site that you think needs attention, don't be shy - tell us about it. Meanwhile, thanks for your patience.
Serpentine Restoration Accomplishments At Soldiers Delight!
The Maryland Department of Natural Resources' Wildlife and Heritage Service conducts Serpentine Ecosystem Restoration Program (SERP) events at the ecologically fragile Soldiers Delight Natural Environment Area in Owings Mills. Read on for our wrap up of our accomplishments in 2021!
National Night Out For SDCI!
SDCI was excited to be invited back for another year at this week's National Night Out event in Owings Mills!
Meet Lynell Tobler: Conserving Soldiers Delight
SDCI is excited that our vice president was featured as the cover story in the August 2021 edition of Greenspring Valley Neighbors magazine! The article describes her life, but mainly dwells on Soldiers Delight Natural Environment Area in Owings Mills, Maryland. We are honored that the magazine chose to highlight such a worthwhile and incredibly important biodiverse habitat.
See the full article at Meet Lynell Tobler: Conserving Soldiers Delight.
