Nature Abounds, a Central Pennsylvania-based national non-profit organization with the focus on bringing people together for a healthy planet, celebrated their five year anniversary on May 1 as well as the impact they have made in that short time.

"Nature Abounds launched our first two signature opportunities, IceWatch USA and Watch the Wild, in late 2008 and in March 2009, respectively. Both opportunities get people outside and engaged in their communities while also collecting information on wildlife, weather, and seasonal changes, to then be analyzed for environmental indicators such as climate change. To date, we have volunteers in all fifty states engaged", said Nature Abounds President Melinda Hughes-Wert.

In early 2010, Nature Abounds entered into a contract with the US Environmental Protection Agency, and in conjunction with the Department of Environmental Protection, to revitalize and expand the Pennsylvania Senior Environment Corps, a program that had lost its funding and its coordinating agency.

Three years later the program is once again thriving, with SEC volunteers engaged in twenty-one Pennsylvania Counties. This year the program has also expanded into Maryland, and there are also SECs in Alabama, Florida, and Montana.

Nature Abounds will accept a 2013 Western Pennsylvania Environmental Award for the SEC program on May 23 at the Westin Convention Center Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh.

Nature Abounds has been active on many environmental aspects. They held two Forest Summits in 2012, one in Clearfield County and one in Philadelphia. They've also held several cleanups.

This year, working with citizens and officials around the Lake Erie Basin on Climate Change . Among some of the other issues they've been most active over the last few years include: the Chesapeake Bay, the Great Lakes Region, fracking, genetically-modified food labels, turtle awareness, invasive flora and fauna, wildlife issues, oil spills, and more.

Hughes-Wert continued, "In our five year history, Nature Abounds has already engaged 3,500 citizens in being good stewards of our natural world. We really are achieving what we set out to do...bringing people together for a healthy planet."

For more information, visit the Nature Abounds website or call 814-765-1453. Nature Abounds is based in DuBois, Pa. 

5/6/2013