The Merry Lea Team celebrated Luke Gascho’s 20 years of leadership as executive director at a September staff meeting and surprised him with two gifts. Thanks to careful planning, the team managed to keep their astute and emotionally intelligent leader clueless until the right moment.
Merry Lea lost a valuable ally and trusted friend on September 13 when Mark Eisfelder, age 57, died unexpectedly following a heart attack. Mark worked for Zehr Construction for 36 years, and in his role as a carpenter and foreman, frequently worked at Merry Lea during the past 19 years.
The cornfield looked like any other cornfield in Northwestern Illinois. But the group tramping across it was an unusual combination of people. Two past presidents of the Ho-Chunk Nation and leaders of the Jo Daviess Conservation Foundation, Elizabeth, Ill., were surveying land together. An archaeologist and Merry Lea’s Dave Ostergren completed the party.
Read about Kinderforest, a gift of goats, alumni adventures, a cornfield encounter and the ways that our history provides us a visionary foundation. See who's coming and going and find a quote from Wendell Berry to ponder.
Jodi Jordan, a kindergarden teacher at Wolf Lake Elementary School is prepared to spend time in the woods. Maybe even roll in the mud. She’s been through several days of Kinderforest training and practice at Merry Lea, she’s got her Frog Toggs® and she’s got a boatload of enthusiasm.
The 2017 Agroecology Summer Intensive (ASI) was the last year for two faculty members who have served the program since its inception in 2006. Larry Yoder and Melissa Kinsey were honored for their contributions at the concluding celebration of the 2017 ASI in early August.
When the Rieth Village site is available, Merry Lea occasionally rents space to like-minded groups that can benefit from contact with our land base and mission. In August 2017, Merry Lea hosted the leadership for Young Evangelicals for Climate Action (YECA).
Merry Lea’s Dr. Dave Ostergren is a co-author of a paper on climate change which recently turned up on a NASA webpage.
Students in Merry Lea’s Agroecology Summer Intensive (ASI) not only learn to grow things; they also work at communicating their learnings to others. As the 2017 ASI drew to a close, they presented projects on topics such as composting, weed management and pastured chickens in a public forum open to community members.
Eleven juniors and seniors from area high schools participated in the week-long Conservation Leadership School (CLS) from June 12-16 at Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center, Goshen College’s 1,189-acre nature sanctuary in Wolf Lake, Indiana.
