Why This Matters

The Conservation Games is an adaptation from Capital Region Land Conservancy’s former “Fields, Forests, + Streams” annual event which brought CRLC staff, board members, and supporters together to celebrate the year’s accomplishments. When COVID-19 make this event impossible in 2020, CRLC took this event virtual, adding educational webinars and self-guided volunteer actions to build out an entirely new event. While Fields, Forests + Streams successfully raised $14,000 in 2019, our first Conservation Games in 2020 raised $18,000 and raised another $30,000 for local conservation in 2021.

The Games leave an impact. Participants walk away with knowledge about local conservation issues and how we can work together. Our volunteers have collectively spent 500 hundred hours and:

• Harvested vegetables at an Shalom Farms to provide local food
• Removed invasive plants at the James River Park to free trees and make room for native plants
• Cleaned up hundreds of pounds of trash over many weekends to boost stream health at Bryan Park
• Built picnic tables with the Richmond ToolBank for local parks
• Planted 30 trees at the Science Museum of Virginia to help cool and shade a local greenway

Thanks to the generosity of our donors, sponsors, volunteers, and community partners, we have been able to accomplish a lot for conservation and public access to the outdoors since the first Conservation Games.

In fact, in 2020 we protected 177 acres of land—an area equal to about 134 football fields—and took ownership of another 51 acres. That’s over 200 acres of forests, wetlands, and riverfront that will clean our rivers and provide much needed habitat for amphibians, reptiles, birds, and aquatic life for generations to come.

In 2021, CRLC completed 7 land conservation protects totaling more than $10 million in value including the purchase of 5 acres in downtown Richmond for a future park at Dock Street and education center for the James River Association as well as 38 acres along the Appomattox River in Chesterfield County, Colonial Heights and Petersburg.

In 2022, we have already protected another property for a future environmental education center on the James River and another 50 acres at Ware Bottom Church Battlefield Park; purchased 42 acres at Campbell’s Bridge Mills on the Appomattox River for a future public park, trail, and wildlife corridor; and accepted a generous donation of 28 acres at New Market Heights Battlefield for historic preservation—and all three projects guarantee future public access to the outdoors!

With your support, this conservation legacy will continue. So let the games begin!

To become a sponsor, please contact Parker Agelasto at (202) 302-0153 or email parker@capitalregionland.org.