Dear Friends,

It would be naïve to say that a walk in the woods is a cure-all for the woes we are witnessing. But when I see photographs of two of our young staffers who have located nests of giant sea turtles on the island’s beaches this month, when I look out on the backyard at the Land Trust office and see the live oaks that this community protected from bulldozers and cement mixers, when I go kayaking with our daughter through the marshes of Glynn, hike the newest trail at Guale Preserve, look out toward Little St. Simons from the viewing platform at Cannon's Point Preserve, or catch a glimpse of the rare nocturnal Hibiscus grandiflorus, I am certain that nature is one of the things that will sustain us.

With both of us being fans of the writer Anne Morrow Lindbergh, I recalled reading that Ms. Lindberg once said to her daughter, “I am equal to my life.” No matter how much heat is thrown at humanity, I believe it, too, is equal to its existence. That seems especially so when we see younger generations leading productive and unselfish lives, speaking truth to power, committing themselves to community and to making Coastal Georgia the best possible place to raise their families. It rings true when those with tremendous wealth, and those who have so little, dig deep to help preserve and protect this island.

Today is World Nature Conservation Day. A walk in the woods or even a conversation with a friend may not ameliorate our fears or set the planet back on its axis. But those are two good places to start, and both can calm our souls until the fires abate. Thank you for being a friend of the Land Trust and thank you for helping to conserve what is most rare and precious about our coastal environment.

Emily Ellison

Executive Director

The Land Trust is delighted to welcome and introduce to you the newest member of our team, Development Director, Lori A. Lewis!

Lori and her husband, Jeffry White, have owned a vacation home on St. Simons Island for more than a decade. The island was also the site of a destination wedding for one of their daughters, and it's where the family sequestered during the pandemic. Earlier this year, they finally made the long awaited transition, moving from Washington, D.C. and making St. Simons their fulltime home.

Lori’s professional career began in her home state of Ohio, working for 19 years in public education where she served the needs of young children with disabilities and provided support services to their families. Following nearly two rewarding decades in primary and early childhood education, Lori began a successful career in higher education. She led fundraising and alumni relations efforts at large public and small private institutions, with her most recent position serving as an advancement executive at George Washington University. She completed her final projects at GW just before moving to the coast this past spring.

Now, Lori is excited to be at the Land Trust and contribute to the valuable work of protecting and preserving St. Simons. She and Jeffry are also looking forward to being active members of the Glynn County community. They are proud parents of two accomplished daughters (one of whom has also relocated to the island with her husband and children), and they are adoring grandparents of one granddaughter and two grandsons. We are so fortunate that it is here where they've chosen to give back to the community and to share many more good times and adventures with family and friends.

Learn more about Lori and all Land Trust Staff HERE.

One of the Land Trust's recent goals has been to add native plants to the grounds of our headquarters at 1810 Frederica Road. As with all our properties, we want the "campus" at 1810 to be a platform for education and a model for conservation. One step further in accomplishing that multi-phased goal was taken this month when Rebecca Cushing (Land Steward Technician) added educational signage to identify different native species. From the familiar live oak and Spanish moss, to the rare, beautiful, and prehistoric swamp rose mallow and coontie palm, each native species can be accurately identified with just a quick glance at these new signs.

One of our favorite natives, the swamp rose mallow (Hibiscus grandiflorus), began blooming this month. These beauties, which can grow up to eight feet tall, came from seeds propagated from Little St. Simons Island and were planted by Land Trust volunteers and staff in January 2021. The flowering perennial is endemic to freshwater wetlands in the southeast and only opens up from dusk to late morning. We hope you'll stop by the Land Trust's office some morning or evening soon and get a good look at one of these rare and amazing plants while they are still in bloom.

Read more about the swamp rose mallow in The Bitter Southerner HERE.

We would like to thank the Live Oaks Garden Club (LOGC) for dedicating their time and resources to make the Land Trust's Harrington Preserve property along Frederica Road a beautiful space for the community to enjoy. It was such a pleasure to have visitor Gabe and his family stop by the property on bikes when the above photo was being taken.

The LOGC cares for the live oaks and other native plantings on the property and Land Trust staff have updated signage on the property, including a sign that acknowledges the LOGC. Staff have also installed a bluebird box on the property in hopes that it will provide a space for nesting eastern bluebirds in the spring. Stop by to see these additions soon, and please be sure to join us in thanking the hardworking members of the Live Oaks Garden Club.

This month, gifts and grants continued to be made to Phase II of the Land Trust's Canopy Campaign. This included a $25,000 contribution from a longtime anonymous supporter, who walked into the office one morning with a check in hand. There are so few ways to adequately thank individuals like this, but we are indeed grateful for their loyal support and encouragement and thank them silently every day.

This and other generous gifts and pledges have taken us 90% of the way toward our total $5.5 Million campaign goal.

If you have not done so already, we hope that you will consider joining in this community-wide investment to conserve some of the last remaining large tracts of undeveloped land on St. Simons. We welcome the opportunity to meet with you and answer any questions you may have about the purpose and goals of the campaign. In the meantime, we sincerely thank all who have supported the effort over these last few months -- that includes those like our walk-in friend who want no recognition.

To learn more about the campaign and how you can participate,

please visit our website or

contact Emily Ellison at 912-638-9109; emellison@sslt.org.

Once again, the Land Trust's Movie Night Under the Oaks reached its max capacity in less than 48 hours by those who reserved a space to watch the much beloved Disney classic "The Jungle Book" with us on the Land Trust's back lawn. We're grateful for your excitement around this free family event and look forward to seeing 200 of you on August 12! Our only request is a collective prayer for NO RAIN!

If you would like to be put on a waiting list,

please email Raleigh Kitchen at rkitchen@sslt.org.

After more than two years of being unable to host the Land Trust's previously annual thank-you event for those in our Live Oak giving level because of the pandemic, the Live Oak Society Reception is back! This event, hosted to acknowledge our loyal and generous Live Oak Society members, will take place on what we think is the perfect day -- NATIONAL PHILANTHROPY DAY, November 15, 2022. Extra special thanks to

Jim Kaufman and his team for making it possible for us to hold the event at the Frederica Golf Club.

To attend the reception, which will have limited capacity, please renew your Live Oak Society membership or become a new Live Oak Society member by Monday, October 31, 2022.

please contact Dalia Charles at dcharles@sslt.org.

Calling all runners who want to test their endurance while "forest bathing" at Guale Preserve! Join the Quintanar Running Company for a unique run at Guale Preserve on Sunday, November 12, 2022. The Guale Preserve Endurance Run (GPER) is a one and three-hour timed loop experience along Polly's Trail inside the middle section of the Preserve. Access is via the main Middle Road entrance off Lawrence Road. Happy running!

Join us in welcoming our newest Pennies for Preservation partner,

Golf Club Realty!

Founded by Cherise Cartwright and based in North Camden County, Golf Club Realty provides expertise in selling homes and buildable lots and gives golfers a place to buy, sell, and lease real estate in golf communities. Golf Club Realty will be participating in the P4P program by donating a percentage of their total proceeds.

To celebrate our partnership, Golf Club Realty hosted a Launch Party at The Bubble Bar, a fellow Pennies for Preservation partner, on July 22nd. Many thanks to our friends at Two Friends for providing space for the event at their Bubble Bar, where guests sipped Preservation Prosecco and dined on delicious bites from the St. Simons Olive Oil Company.

The 'A Penny for Your Thoughts' conversation series with our Pennies for Preservation partners continues! This Q&A initiative individually highlights each partner so the community can connect with and get to know each business and business owners a little better.

Please see a recap of comments from the Pennies for Preservation partners who were featured on social media in JULY:

Our partners at Dorothy’s Cocktail & Oyster Bar celebrated their one-year anniversary in April. With their first year of operation under their belts, we asked owners Claire and Daniel Auffenberg if they would share any lessons learned

"When we first opened Dorothy’s," Daniel told us, "we did not anticipate the multitude of challenges that we would end up facing over the first year, but through those challenges we have grown and honestly we could not be happier with where we are in our journey at the moment. At times, it has been hard to find the motivation to push forward, but what has kept us going is the overwhelming support of so many of our regulars, as well as first time guests, and the hard work and dedication of our team."

Claire and Daniel shared that operating a restaurant has taught them how to be better guests at other establishments. “We know everyone in our industry is trying their best and what’s most important is to be kind to each other and to give grace when needed.” The Dorothy’s couple loves this community and they hope to see you in their dining room soon!

Thank you, Claire and Daniel, the entire Dorothy's team, and their loyal patrons, for helping preserve St. Simons!

and the Land Trust's dedicated Pennies for Preservation partners.

Pennies for Preservation businesses raise funds to preserve and protect St. Simons Island.

1) Collecting a voluntary 1% or specific dollar amount donation from their

customers' receipts/invoices.

2) Donating 1% of their companies' proceeds or services.

This month, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) placed the migratory monarch butterfly on its Red List of threatened species and classified it as endangered.

One of the most serious threats to a migrating monarch butterfly is habitat fragmentation and loss, which leaves fewer locations for adults and caterpillars to find food. Other threats include invasive species, pesticides, climate change, and more. By preserving habitat on St. Simons, and providing native nectar-rich plants like native milkweed, we can help this species survive these stresses.

On the Georgia coast, researchers, and volunteers with the Butterflies of the Atlantic Flyway Alliance (BAFA) are trying to learn more about butterfly migration through annual surveys. Learn more about the Land Trust's involvement HERE.

And learn more about this new IUCN designation and migratory monarchs HERE.

Photo by SSI Sea Turtle Project

If you haven't been following the sea turtle nesting activity along Georgia's coast this year, you've missed quite a bit of excitement!

As of July 28, the monitored islands off the coast can boast more than 3,920 sea turtle nests, many of which have begun hatching. This nest total is very similar to the 2019 state record of 3,956.

St. Simons Island, however, hasn't seen this many nests since 2016! So far this year, the island has received 12 loggerhead sea turtle nests, just one shy of the 2016 record.

The Land Trust is grateful it can play a small role in providing safe beach habitat for the survival of the loggerhead and other coastal species. In December of 2017, a .76-acre property on 14th Street at Gould's Inlet was donated to the organization by the Spalding family. It is a wooded dune habitat that progresses from upper beach at the east end to primary dune and inter-dune meadow, followed by shrub zone and early successional maritime forest at the west end.

The tract is one of very few protected beach-front properties on St. Simons. It provides habitat for a variety of wildlife, including yellow-rumped warbler, Carolina wren, painted bunting (species of conservation concern), raccoon, marsh rabbit, loggerhead sea turtles (federally threatened species), least terns, and Wilson’s plovers (state threatened species). Protecting this tract from development helps to reinforce the important wildlife corridor on St. Simons. We will be forever grateful to the Spalding-Wood family for contributing these dunes that benefit the community and our fellow species that share the beach with us.

The Land Trust is proud to have two of its staff members, Stephanie Knox and Raleigh Kitchen, who rise especially early on summer mornings to volunteer with the SSI Sea Turtle Project. Having worked in sea turtle research along Georgia's coast in previous jobs, and now as volunteers, Stephanie and Raleigh have more than 20 years of combined experience monitoring beaches for sea turtle nests. We are so proud of these two and the other dedicated members of the SSI Sea Turtle Project for helping to protect this ancient species as well as preserving land on St. Simons! Kudos, ladies!

TODAY: Join people around the globe who are working to raise awareness of the need to safeguard the Earth's natural resources on World Nature Conservation Day.

August 11: Coastal WildScapes Lecture and Garden Tour - Pollinator-friendly Native Landscapes for Coastal Georgia. Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant, Brunswick.

August 12: SSLT Movie Night Under the Oaks - RESCHEDULED!

August 15: Keep Golden Isles Beautiful Clean & Green Golf Tournament. Brunswick Country Club.

August 28: Coastal WildScapes Lecture and Book Signing with Author Janisse Ray, Ashantilly Center, Darien

September 17: Coastal WildScapes Annual Fundraiser, Starlight and Spartina, Musgrove, St. Simons Island.

September 24: Coastal WildScapes Fall Native Plant Sale, Ashantilly Center, Darien

November 13: Guale Preserve Endurance Run by Quintanar Running Co.

November 15: SSLT Live Oak Society Reception. Frederica Golf Club.

November 17 - 20: RSM Golf Tournament Hosted by Davis Love Foundation.

November 28: Giving Tuesday

January 21, 2023: SSLT Annual Oyster Roast