Bethesda-Chevy Chase Chapter of the Izaak Walton League Wins Three National Conservation Awards

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE    –    July 21, 2020

POOLESVILLE, Maryland –The Bethesda-Chevy Chase Chapter of the Izaak Walton League of America (B-CC IWLA) announced today that it was named the recipient of the National James Lawton Childs Award, the National Hall of Fame Award, and the Save Our Streams Award.

These prestigious honors, awarded by the Izaak Walton League’s National Headquarters (IWLA) and the Izaak Walton League’s Endowment Fund, recognizes the thousands of hours of conservation and education work by the Chapter’s dedicated volunteers.

“We are thrilled that our Chapter’s Interpretive Walk in the Woods Program, Avifauna Program, and Ponds & Streams Committee were recognized as national leaders in conservation,” said B-CC IWLA President Jeff Seaman. “Our volunteers’ dedication and unrelenting work on behalf of conservation and education are helping shape the future of responsible environmental stewardship.”

The Izaak Walton League’s Endowment Fund awards The National James Lawton Childs Award to the chapter with the most outstanding conservation programs offered to their local community for the previous year. B-CC IWLA’s Interpretive Walk in the Woods program, spearheaded by former Chapter president Byron Mezick, is provided to outstanding students in the Poolesville High School Global Ecology Program. Offered annually, the walk gives students a firsthand look at how chemistry, physics, and mathematics are potent tools in interpreting the secrets of the natural world. Since its inception, the Chapter has hosted over 1,000 students.

IWLA conveys the National Hall of Fame Award to long-standing programs that have achieved a record of outstanding accomplishment in furthering the mission and goals of the League over time. B-CC IWLA’s Avifauna Program, which was first conceived over 20 years ago by members Jim and Lin Tate, revolutionized the Chapter’s avian habitat management on Chapter grounds. Not content to stop there, Chapter volunteers began submitting data to Cornell University’s Lab of Ornithology database in 2005. For several years the Chapter has served as a focal point for the region’s semi-annual bird counts.

“The team is a sterling example of citizen science in action,” said Seaman. “For their years of dedication, observation, and careful conservation work, members of the Avifauna Program deserve the recognition they earned.”

The Save Our Streams award is given to groups that have done outstanding work in the field of environmental education and citizen activism for clean water over the preceding year. The Ponds & Streams Committee, led by Chairman John Novak, achieved remarkable success not just from maintaining and monitoring the many streams and two ponds on the Conservation Farm, but also by undertaking a variety of labor-intensive projects to monitor streams in the surrounding watershed.

“Mr. Novak’s outstanding leadership reliably grows our team of conservationists year after year,” said Seaman. “We could not be more proud of the work they do for the community and for their contribution to National’s Save Our Streams program.”

For more information, contact Jeff Seaman at 301-775-4973.

About The B-CC IWLA Chapter

B-CC IWLA’s 904 members maintain a 624-acre conservation farm in the Poolesville area of the Montgomery County Agricultural Reserve. Our goal is to develop and maintain the conservation farm as the best example of living resource management and habitat conservation. Our all-volunteer membership strives to demonstrate the application of responsible, science-based conservation of the soil, water in ponds and streams, woodlands, fields, and wildlife. Our farm’s cash crop is not grain or vegetables – it is the healthy ecological attitude of our membership.

About the IWLA

Izaak Walton League of America is a leading voice of conservation with over 200 chapters and more than 40,000 members.  Founded in 1922, the Izaak Walton League of America protects America’s outdoors through education, community-based conservation, and promoting outdoor recreation.