My time at Douglas Land Conservancy has come to an end, and with it, the summer of 2016.  As I now prepare to return to Valpo for my senior year, I have been thinking a lot about community.  When you are in college, it can at times appear fairly easy to find a community.  After all, you are living with your closest friends, and surrounded by students nearly every day.  You find those with like minded interests, and a community forms.  A consistent cautionary tale that I have heard echoed by nearly every graduate from Valpo over the past few years is that I cannot take for granted that community because when you move on from college, finding a community can be more challenging.  I have taken this advice to heart, and plan on maximizing every opportunity in front of me this upcoming school year.  My time at DLC, however, gave me a different kind of expectation for my time after Valpo.  Not only does DLC protect open space and wildlife habitats, it fosters and builds a sense of community.

One of my favorite aspects of DLC is the guided hike series that it puts on throughout the year.  Often these hikes focus on a certain aspect of the natural world, such as bird watching, local history, geological formations, scenic vistas, or wildflowers, just to name a few.  These hikes are lead by trained volunteers, often members of the local community who volunteer not only for DLC, but countless other organizations throughout the county.  The volunteers help make the hikes as successful as they are for each and every hiker.  Each hike can draw upwards of 50 people, all of whom are interested in the kind of work the DLC does on a daily basis.  I had the privilege of attending one of these guided hikes over the summer, which was a wildflower hike at Dawson Butte Open Space in Douglas County.  The hike was lead by two native plant masters, who know and can tell you anything you’d like to know about plants in Colorado.  There was a tremendous variety of people in attendance, ranging from retirees to young families to middle-aged professionals.  Each person had their own particular interest on the hike, but everyone was interested in conservation as a whole.  You met like minded people, and there was a sense of community.

DLC puts on guided hikes and other community-oriented events throughout the year in an effort to continue to build its relationship with the community at large.  In a conversation I had with one of my bosses, she emphasized the necessity for the greater Douglas County community to know about DLC and its mission.  If you truly care about the land you live and work on, and the environment you live in, DLC offers you a productive outlet for that passion.  You can volunteer and meet others with the same priorities as you.  And through that, a unique and special community forms.  DLC’s work serves not only to protect that land, but to build that community that is integral to our lives.