2009 Defenders Chapter Achievement Awards

Awards presented at the 2010 Izaak Walton League national convention, held July 13-16, 2010, in Grantville, Pennsylvania.

The Izaak Walton League is built on community-based conservation. To acknowledge our most outstanding chapters, the League presents annual Defenders Chapter Achievement Awards. The annual award is taken from the League’s motto, “Defenders of soil, air, woods, waters, and wildlife.”

To receive the award, chapters must meet specific criteria in five of the following six areas: membership, contributions, education, conservation, youth involvement, and communications. A record-breaking 39 chapters received the award in 2010 for their accomplishments the previous year. These groups showcase the depth of the conservation commitment among Izaak Walton League chapters. (We only have room to list one activity per chapter here.)

• Bethesda-Chevy Chase Chapter++ (Maryland): Designed and built a solar-powered aerator for ponds on the chapter’s property and made those designs available to other League chapters.
• Bill Cook Chapter+ (Wisconsin): Taught more than 120 high school students to measure the quality of local waterways using the League’s Save Our Streams water testing protocols.
• Brown County Chapter (Wisconsin): Hosts an annual Teddy Bear Hunt at Osprey Point nature preserve to encourage families to explore the preserve and engage in outdoor recreation and conservation activities.
• Central New York Chapter++ (New York): Spent hundreds of volunteer hours working with League’s Project Watershed outdoor education and conservation program for middle school and high school students. 
• Delta Chapter (Ohio): Holds a free Kids Annual Bluegill Derby for youth ages 1-14 to engage them in fishing and outdoor recreation. 
• Des Moines Chapter (Iowa): Coordinated and hosted the first annual Iowa Outdoor Expo for Youth and Families to engage families in outdoor recreation and natural resource conservation.
• Dwight Lydell Chapter (Michigan): Hosts a weekly Kids Nature Club after school to help the kids feel a kinship to the outdoors. 
• Elgin Chapter (Illinois): Worked with Boy Scouts and their families to build a 10-station orienting course for use by the Scouts for future merit badge projects and by chapter members and their families.
• Frederick #1 Chapter (Maryland): Provides hunter education classes throughout the year that offer extensive instruction on outdoor ethics.
• Fredericksburg-Rappahannock Chapter (Virginia): Held several events honoring military veterans and involving them with chapter projects.
• Grand Island Chapter (Nebraska): Hosts an annual youth fishing derby for 200 to 400 kids.
• Hamilton Chapter (Ohio): Created a nursery to grow trees that the chapter donates to community projects.
• Harford County (Maryland): Coordinated a steam and wetlands cleanup of Winters Run Marsh and Waterway.
• Kampeska Chapter (South Dakota): Coordinates an ongoing project to remove invasive buckthorn bushes at Memorial Park and replant the area with natives.\Lake Keuka Chapter (New York): Holds an annual youth nature class to teach kids how to identify plants and clean up after themselves in the wild (“leave no trace”).
• Lincoln Chapter++ (Nebraska): Conducted numerous youth hunting and fishing clinics.
• Lois Green-Sligo Chapter* (Maryland): Became a seed collection point for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources to repopulate state nursery stocks.
• Loudoun County Chapter (Virginia): Holds an annual banquet to recognize anti-poaching efforts of citizens and local law enforcement officers. 
• McCook Lake Chapter++ (South Dakota): Provided six $1,000 scholarships to the high school seniors and six $1,000 scholarships to South Dakota State University students. 
• Mountaineer Chapter (West Virginia): Hosted a first annual Youth Conservation Day to introduce children to outdoor recreation and conservation. 
• Owatonna Chapter (Minnesota): Cleans up a four-mile stretch of Straight River and eliminate invasive plant species. 
• Radford Chapter* (Virginia): Hosted a bat house building project for members and their families and educated them about threats to bat health.
• Rockville Chapter++ (Maryland): Monitors water quality in Great Seneca Creek quarterly to identify sources of water pollution and train volunteers.
• Silverton Chapter+ (Oregon): Financially supports a community garden at Robert Frost Elementary School, which is used by teachers as an outdoor classroom for a variety of school subjects.
• Sioux Falls Chapter++ (South Dakota): Hosted a BB gun league to familiarize youth with gun safety and different shooting positions. 
• Southern Maryland Chapter (Maryland): Held a Wetlands Appreciation Day open house that included conservation tours and stream monitoring.
• Sportsman’s Chapter (Maryland): Monitors water quality at locations throughout the Deer Creek watershed. 
• Suffolk-Nansemond Chapter* (Virginia): Offered a stipend for Suffolk City school teachers taking a summer environmental course.
• Sunshine Chapter (South Dakota): Engaged the community in constructing a Youth Conservation Center that will be available for use by groups throughout the community.
• Talbot County Chapter++ (Maryland): Participated in an oyster recovery program by raising 12 cages of spat (baby oysters).
• Tiffin-Seneca County Chapter+ (Ohio): Upgraded walkways and built covered areas for wheelchair-accessible hunts at Miller Conservation Farm.
• Walter Sherry Memorial Chapter (Illinois): Worked with physically challenged youth from a local school for an outdoor recreation day. 
• Warren County Chapter (Iowa): As part of a state osprey reintroduction project, “adopted” an osprey chick by donating money to support the program and volunteering at the nature center where the chicks were raised. 
• Warren County Chapter (Virginia): Conducted Save Our Streams water quality monitoring throughout the county, including the newly-restored Happy Creek.
• Wayne County Chapter (Ohio): Planted a half acre of native warm season prairie grassland plants to create a self-sustaining prairie remnant that can spread and crowd out invasives. 
• West Central Iowa Chapter* (Iowa): Provides expert instructors and volunteer nature trail guides for local elementary school’s annual nature camp. 
• Wildlife Achievement Chapter (Maryland): Completed work on a one-acre plot with more than 200 American Chestnut seed trees to be used in the American Chestnut Foundation’s breeding program. 
• W.J. McCabe Chapter* (Minnesota): Hosted a youth fishing clinic and a youth outdoor expo focused on building an appreciation of the outdoors. 
• York Chapter #67 (Pennsylvania): Planted 100 seedlings and two acres of cover (switchgrass, sunflowers, orchard grass, and clovers) to restore wildlife habitat.

KEY
*      First-Time Recipient  
+      5th Consecutive Year Recognition
++    10th Consecutive Year Recognition