Backyard Collective!

The Conservation Alliance (CA) is a group of outdoor industry businesses that have banded together and pooled their "membership dues" to distribute money in the form of grants to worthy environmental organizations. The group was founded in 1989 by outdoor industry giants like REI, The North Face, Kelty and Patagonia, and today it disburses about $1 million to projects across the country that protect wild lands where people recreate. Employees of Conservation Alliance member companies also get their hands dirty now and then for a day of environmental volunteerism to benefit their local communities, which they call a "Backyard Collective."

The Forest Society was a direct beneficiary of a large Backyard Collective that took place recently involving employees from Eastern Mountain Sports, Nemo Equipment, Jetboil and other outdoor businesses in the Northeast. A group of hearty volunteers gathered at the McCabe Forest in Antrim to help construct a trail from our new trailhead on Route 202 to the existing trail system. Four footbridges were also built during this workday, to span small drainages along the trail. Forest Society land stewards and a handful of staff were there to organize and lead the volunteer teams, and an amazing amount of work got done in just a short time. Following the trail project, a pizza party was held at EMS headquarters in Peterborough, and more than 100 volunteers gathered to celebrate the success of different Backyard Collective projects that had taken place earlier that day. Here is a link to the story on the Conservation Alliance's blog!