Long Point Basin Land Trust receives Trillium grant

Ontario Trillium Foundation recently announced a grant of $106,300 for the Land Point Basin Land Trust at Morning Moth Discovery, an Explore the Outdoors event.

Alex Hunt

Advocate Correspondent

With support from the Ontario Trillium Foundation (OTF), the Long Point Basin Land Trust is expanding its reach, deepening community engagement, and growing conservation efforts across the region.

Long Point Basin Land Trust recently received a $106,300 grant from the OTF to expand its mission to spread organization awareness and its values on maintaining habitat conservation and nature programming.

It was recognized there was a need to increase engagement with the community and build a resiliency in the organization, said Wendy Cridland, executive director at Long Point Basin Land Trust.

“The OTF grant builds capacity in terms of developing a fundraising and communication plan, along with materials and workshops about the benefits of land donation, (enabling) us to provide information to landowners to help with habitat management, help to enhance and expand our marketing.”

Along with enhancing the relationship with landowners, the grant will also be utilized to expand LPBLT’s ‘Explore the Outdoors’ nature program.

“The program provides people with a great opportunity to engage in nature which certainly adds to the benefits of receiving this funding,” said Cridland.

“We are measuring the donation through tracking the number of people that are involved with the land trust. Whether it be providing donations or participating in activities or engaging us through social media, signing up through our newsletter helps us to be able to measure the success of the funding and the program.” 

Cridland says that through the funding, the organization will be able to expand marketing reach and identity awareness through new venues, visitor guides, and sending postcards to the surrounding area to build a foundation on the value the LPBLT has on the community. 

The land trust has also announced its new Arboretum Trail which features 13 tree species, along with highlighting the importance of its existing biodiverse ecosystems and conservation. 

“We are certainly excited to continue to do the work here and expand the impact over time and grow our land base and engage with more people in conservation,” said Cridland. “From what we have to offer I would hope that people take home an understanding on how special this area is. It’s so diverse and has so much wildlife and habitats to learn about and enjoy.”

With growing support and deeper community ties, the land trust aims to protect its unique landscape for generations to come.