Recently the Summit land Conservancy completed our 55th easement when we finished the transaction to save the Andrus Family Farm in the Kamas Valley Meadow.
Irene Ruf, the family’s representative walked into the conservancy’s offices in 2011 hoping we could help her. At that time the conservancy had just purchased our first conservation easement. We’d made our first application for federal funding and we weren’t sure it would come through. We had two and a half staff people (myself being the half-time person)
We never like to say no to a landowner who wants to save their land, but we had no way to fund a farm in the Kamas Valley Meadow in 2011.
But Irene and her family didn’t give up on us.
And neither did this community. When Vail Resorts came to town a year or so later and bought The Canyons, one of our board members, Tonja Hanson, made a fortuitous introduction.
That year, Vail Resorts helped save an 85-acre organic farm in Hotysville and began a long, dedicated relationship between Park City Resort/Vail EpicPromise and the Conservancy’s land conservation program.
For years now, Park City Resort and Vail EpicPromise have helped us build our conservation program by donating cash, sponsoring a table at our annual Blue Sky Bash, providing auction items, and including us in their annual roundtable listening sessions where we get to meet with other local nonprofits and share our collective thoughts and concerns.
Summit Land Conservancy is dedicated to forming deep friendships here in our community. Vail EpicPromise made it possible for us to expand our conservation team so that we can attract major federal awards, support the county’s open space bond initiative, and generate new support from individuals to our For The Future Fund, all with the goal of serving landowners like Irene Ruf and the Andrus family.
So 13 years after Irene walked into our office we were able to finally achieve her goal of permanently protecting her 96-acre farm in the heart of the Kamas Valley Meadow; protecting a family’s legacy, wildlife habitat, regenerative agriculture, and a critical aquifer in the Great Salt Lake Watershed.
Cheryl Fox
CEO, Summit Land Conservancy