The PA Association of Environmental Professionals recently honored Nature Abound’s statewide Pennsylvania Senior Environment Corps with the Walter Lyon Award.

The Walter Lyon Award recognizes an organization, project or program that made a unique, creative, or significant contribution toward maintenance or restoration of Pennsylvania’s environmental quality or to the field of environmental management.

The SEC program has been in existence in Pennsylvania since 1997 and engages senior-aged volunteers in activities like water quality monitoring, identifying and marking abandoned oil and gas wells, maintaining trails, and environmental education.

The SEC has water quality data on over two-third of the state’s waterways, and since 2011, Nature Abounds has put $185,000 of water quality monitoring equipment into the field. The contribution of the program to the Commonwealth is over $3 million per year.

Nature Abounds also recently marked their 9th Anniversary administering the program.

Since being re-founded in 2008, Nature Abounds has engaged over 9,000 volunteers in all fifty states and beyond. In addition to the SEC program, volunteers of all age can help collect data on wildlife, weather, and seasonal changes for scientists or  they can outreach to the public about how they can help turtles or with climate change.

Volunteers may also help plant trees, remove invasive plants, knit sweaters for penguins affected by oil spills, or convert plastic bags to sleeping mats for the homeless.

For more information on programs, initiatives and upcoming events, visit the Nature Abounds website.  Click Here to sign up for regular updates from Nature Abounds.  Click Here to support Nature Abounds programs.

(Photo: Nature Abounds President Melinda Hughes and Centre County SEC member Joyce McKay accepting the award from PAEP.)

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PA Environmental Professionals Announces Winners Of Karl Mason, Walter Lyon Awards

[Posted: May 9, 2017]

5/15/2017