DeYong Natural Area a Traverse City and Leelanau Treasure

DeYoung Natural Area is a DFF Favorite

Restoration Work Begins at DeYoung Natural Area

• 

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

From our 2007 Fall Newsletter

Usually, folks at Leelanau Conservancy aren’t fond of seeing bulldozers in beautiful places. But in the case of the DeYoung Natural Area on Cedar Lake, the dozers will be a welcome sight this week.

The activity is part of an ongoing effort to bring back a healthy, native landscape at DeYoung. “The restoration work that we are beginning at DeYoung now prepares the ground for so many terrific opportunities,” said Conservancy Stewardship Director, Jenee Rowe. Bulldozers will remove the invasive autumn olive tree, which chokes out native species, and has taken over much of the upland at DeYoung. The Conservancy’s goal is to remove this aggressive shrub, which often reaches heights of 20 feet. Then, the plan is to reforest the upland to a native hardwood forest peppered with native white pines. A grant from the Department of Natural Resources Forest Land Enhancement Program is helping to pay for the project. In the process, a diseased cherry orchard on the upland that has not been tended for years will also be removed. The diseased trees are a threat to other nearby orchards.

In preparation, last week a dozen or so volunteers planted 1,000 white pine seedlings into a temporary nursery near the stream. In two to three years, many of these trees will be replanted into the old cherry orchard. Also on tap this week, the creation of a new gravel parking area near the big hay barn on Cherry Bend Road. The lot will accommodate the many people who are attending hikes and other events on the property. “It will be great to have an area where people can park and access our beautiful new Cedar Lake Trail in all seasons,” said Rowe, who has overseen all of the work and improvements that have occurred on the property to date.

In addition to creating the quarter-mile Cedar Lake Trail, the Conservancy has also made improvements to some of the historic structures since acquiring the 145-acre parcel in June, 2006. It has replaced the roof on the old farmhouse, which was in danger of being destroyed because of water damage. The porch was also rebuilt and volunteers have cleaned out the old barns and helped to put up new doors. A second, upland trail is in the works, as is a new fishing pier on Cedar Lake (with 4 ADA-accessible fishing stations). Also coming soon; bike racks and a drinking fountain along the TART trail. “We couldn’t have done all this work without the generosity of the Oleson Foundation and the Dole Family Foundation, and our many hardworking volunteers,” added Rowe.

Fundraising for the $2 million project continues. To date, the Conservancy has raised $667,244 in gifts and pledges toward its $1 million private fundraising goal. A $50,000 Rotary Charities challenge grant awarded late last year has nearly been met, with $12,091 remaining yet to raise. “Today is a great time to help us, because Rotary Charities will match every dollar until we complete the challenge,” says Anne Shoup, the Conservancy’sDirector of Charitable Giving. In April the Conservancy, in partnership with Elmwood Township, applied to the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund for just over $1 million to help complete the preservation of this magnificent public resource. The applications will be scored by the State over the summer and final announcements will be made in December

- See more at: http://leelanauconservancy.org/2007/08/restoration-work-begins-at-deyoung-natural-area/#sthash.4wo9GwXx.dpuf

Preserving the Earth for Future Generations

Dole Family Foundation  in the News

Betsy and Stan Dole have long been supporters of Planned Parenthood.  One of the grants they made through the foundation this past year was $12,000 to Planned Parenthood of Western and Northern Michigan to pay the cost of colposcopy screening for women in Northern Michigan who would otherwise not have been able to afford this critical testing.  Staff from the Traverse City office of Planned Parenthood have reported how appreciative and relieved the clients have been who have received this service.  Recently, the Traverse City Record Eagle carried an article about this grant, headlined, “Dole grant provides cancer screening.”  While the original press release was edited, the article did highlight the important service which Planned Parenthood is providing due to our grant.  We will just have to hope that the foundation is not inundated with health related requests as a result of this publicity!

Teichner Preserve – On Sunday, April 28, 2012 there will be an opportunity to walk the new boardwalk and view the wetlands restoration.   The walk starts at 10:00 am.  This would be an interesting time to see how the restoration of native plants and wildflowers is coming along.  Photographers could take some pictures which could be compared to as midsummer visit to Teichner Preserve in July.

DeYoung Farm – While the Dole Family Foundation support was for stream restoration, it might be interesting for local history buffs to visit the old DeYoung Farmstead on Tuesday, May 22 at 1:00pm.  There will be an opportunity to meet with professors and students from Eastern Michigan University who have been doing a project of historic preservation at the old farmhouse.

In July, when the Dole Family Foundation is all together, 

    

2009 Newsletter

Dole Family Foundation Newsletter       

     Fall 2009

Family Granting News

After the granting decisions made by the second generation of foundation directors, letters were sent with the grants to the Michigan Nature Association, Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council, and the Leelanau Conservancy indicating that the DFF expects to receive reports from these organizations as to the outcome of the grants.  The story below indicates one case where the money is already being put to good use.

Site Visit to DeYoung Farm

On Monday, Oct. 18, 2009, Stan and Betsy met staff of the Leelanau Conservancy at the DeYoung Natural Area farm.  Anne Shoup, Director of Charitable Giving and Matt, Stewardship Staff, took us to the stream restoration project.  There, we met Bill, the director of the Youth Works team. The kids work three days a week and go to school two days a week.  On alternate weeks they work two days and go to school three days.  The Conservancy uses the DFF grant to pay the kids minimum wage for clearing invasive species along the stream.   This entails cutting and clearing full grown glossy buckthorn and autumn olive shrubs that have crowded out everything else.   If the kids don’t attend school, they are dropped from the program.  So, it’s a win-win for the kids and for the stream.  The work will continue throughout the coming year as teams will go back in to clear any regrowth and plant native species.  The site visit gave evidence that the DFF grant was being well used and having the desired outcome.

     The photo shows Connor and Haley exploring the stream when visiting the DeYoung farm earlier in September. 

End of Year Tasks

Directors are reminded that their discretionary grant decisions need to be made and communicated to the Foundation Secretary who will disburse the funds.  

The Foundation Donors are currently making their “pass-through” grants.  Most of these are to environmental and population related groups.  They have decided to continue to fund the Grandville Avenue Arts and Humanities music program at the same level as in 2008.  There continues to be demand for these services for “at risk” children in this largely Hispanic neighborhood where Betsy has been involved as founder of United Church Outreach Ministry.  She considers it to be justice related, rather than focusing on the arts, as it serves children who might not otherwise be exposed to learning piano, guitar, and violin.  The Executive Director met with Betsy and Stan recently to ask for continued funding, given the difficulty in raising new money in the current economy.

Stanley Dole, Olivet College Board of Trustees treasurer, and Betsy Dole, trustee emeritus, were presented with Doctors of Humane Letters, honoris causa.

Commencement May 21, 2011

Olivet recognized more than 160 seniors as part of graduation ceremonies Saturday, May 21 at The Cutler Event Center.
During the ceremony, Stanley Dole, Olivet College Board of Trustees treasurer, and Betsy Dole, trustee emeritus, were presented with Doctors of Humane Letters, honoris causa.
Residents of Grand Rapids, the Doles are longtime supporters of Olivet College, the United Church of Christ and their community. 

From left: Stanley and Elizabeth Dole, Olivet President Steven M. Corey, Ph.D.

She was the first woman to serve as chair of the board from 1992-97, during which time she helped lead the college through a comprehensive transformation. In addition, she founded the Betsy Dole Women’s Resource Center on campus.

Betsy earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Oberlin College and has received many honors, including the Olivet College Leadership Award.
Stanley is a certified public accountant who specialized in auditing non-profit organizations. He continues to advise non- profit organizations on investment and accounting issues, recently serving as treasurer of several of them. Stanley has served the local, state and national United Church of Christ in many capacities over the years. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and earned his bachelor’s degree in economics from Bowdoin College, where he was a Phi Beta Kappa. He earned his master’s degree from the University of Michigan. 

See Stanley and Betsy's Commencement Photo Here

With Betsy Dole at the Helm Arcadia Dune's is Preserved

With Betsy Dole at the Helm Arcadia Dune's is Preserved

Arcadia Bluff - Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy

Betsy's Left Her Mark Again

Betsy's Left Her Mark With A Women's Resouce Center

About the Betsy Dole Women's Resource Center

The Olivet College Betsy Dole Women's Resource Center provides information, education and services related to gender issues. Established in 1997, the mission of the Betsy Dole Women's Resource Center is to:

• Support, educate and empower women of all cultures, races, sexual orientations and ages
• Provide a safe environment while respecting all facets of women’s abilities, spirituality and differences
• Celebrate women’s achievements      
• Engage men as allies
• Advocate for a climate that promotes social justice free of all barriers and discrimination
• Educate men on women’s issues and the complexities of healthy masculinity
• Provide a supportive atmosphere that helps eradicate gender-based inequities and encourages and facilitates the evolution and development of personal and academic potential

Links to the Past

Linking to the Past

Histroical Gift

Whispering Pines: Historical Perspectives as Gifts

In this month’s column, John Cross ’76 examines the extraordinary papers of the late Stanley F. Dole of the Class of 1913, a gift from his son, Stanley F. Dole Jr. of the Class of 1947, to George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives in the Hawthorne-Longfellow Library.

Much has been written in recent years about the intergenerational transfer of wealth in America, but considerably less attention has been paid to the intergenerational transfer of “stuff” – the scrapbooks, photos, bundles of letters, journals, and objects ranging from small keepsakes to houses that together constitute the historical legacies of individuals and families.  These tangible expressions of the past that occupy places in our lives have survived decades – centuries in some cases – by avoiding damp basements, paper-shredding mice in attics, and overly zealous spring cleaning projects. As anyone faced with relocating or downsizing their residence can attest, such things are “more easily acquired than got rid of,” to borrow a phrase from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden.

Well-documented family heirlooms and records may have historical value that greatly exceeds the auction prices that could be realized for items lacking attached stories and family connections. Recently the George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives in the Hawthorne-Longfellow Library received the papers of the late Stanley F. Dole of the Class of 1913, a gift from his son, Stanley F. Dole Jr. of the Class of 1947. The catalog listing contains some of the documentation for an extraordinary life of service – U.S. Navy veteran of World War I; treasurer of the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company in Detroit during the Great Depression; and Alumni Fund Director, Alumni Council president, and Overseer of Bowdoin College.  A scrapbook stuffed with menus, ticket stubs, a Phi Chi poster addressed to “Ye Puling Babes and Sucklings of the Bonehead Class of 1913,” and other memorabilia provides glimpses of student social life both on- and off-campus. Other files contain correspondence about the organization of alumni fundraising a half century ago, as well as a 40-year longitudinal perspective of the Bowdoin Class of 1913.

What remains for me the most remarkable component of the collection, however, is the extraordinary paper record of Dole’s service as a young Navy ensign assigned to the small American Peace Mission in South Russia during the civil war between the Bolsheviks and the White Russians from 1918-1920. Under the command of Rear Admiral Newton McCully, the mission consisted of ten officers and ten enlisted men, divided into three groups, each of which was assigned to a different portion of southern Russia. In March of 1919 Dole’s team arrived in the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk and established ties with the White Russian forces who sought to reclaim the country from the Bolsheviks. The Dole papers contain detailed reports on the military, political, and economic situation in the Crimea and Cossack regions; a series of large hand-drawn and annotated maps track the course of military engagements and troop movements on both sides. Stan Dole’s archive preserves dozens of messages that were encrypted and sent from McCully’s command to the U.S. State Department advising of the rapidly changing military, political, and humanitarian conditions on the ground there.

It must have been an extraordinary experience. On August 12, 1920, Dole and an American sailor were assaulted in Sevastopol in full view of a high-ranking Bolshevik officer by Red army soldiers. Copies of the report of the assault and the high-level diplomatic exchanges between U.S. and Russian officials reveal the hair-trigger environment within which the American Peace Mission operated.  Two groups from the American mission left Russia when the territories in which they were stationed were overtaken by the Red army. Admiral McCully returned to Paris to plead for additional international aid, leaving Stanley Dole as the sole American representative in European Russia for some time. Dole’s reports are remarkable for their detail and their comprehensiveness. Carefully drawn sketch maps of the Novorossiysk waterfront identify the berths of individual British and American ships and the passport and medical examination stations that were key elements of the evacuation plan for civilians, foreign nationals, and White Russian forces.

There are dangerous fires abroad in the world and too often men of education who should know better attempt to play with these fires, to throw fuel on them for their own personal aggrandizement.

For his 25^th Reunion in 1938, Dole reflected on the experience: “Our little group of three officers and two enlisted men found themselves at the headquarters and base of the so-called Volunteer Army…For nearly two years I lived with them. I shared their hopes and their disappointment and final failure. I went through terrible epidemics of typhus and cholera with them. I helped celebrate their Easter and Christmas and I helped bury their dead. I visited the battle lines and faced the Bolshevists’ gun fire on many fronts. I was honored by General Denikin when he was their leader and later by General Wrangel when he was in command, with high military decorations of old Russia. My heart and soul were in the cause…It is now like a dream – vivid and unforgettable but not real. The last weeks of it were spent in helping thousands of the defeated Whites to flee their country forever.” Mindful of the forces already set in motion in Europe by 1938, Dole wrote, “There are dangerous fires abroad in the world and too often men of education who should know better attempt to play with these fires, to throw fuel on them for their own personal aggrandizement…Will those of us who have gone forth from Bowdoin and from Harvard and from Michigan and from all the other colleges and universities throw our influence to the side of reason and will we be strong enough?”

The Stanley Fuller Dole papers are available to scholars who seek to understand a tumultuous period in world history, as well as to those who want to learn more about the College’s past. Not all documents and memorabilia associated with Bowdoin and its alumni will meet the criteria of uniqueness, historical significance, and relevance necessary to become part the College’s archives and special collections. For some items, other repositories – historical societies, local libraries, museums, state archives – may be more appropriate destinations for the materials at hand.  In any case, it is critical to work out in advance details about what is being offered to (and what will be accepted by) a given repository; at Bowdoin the Department of Special Collections & Archives always welcomes that dialog with prospective donors. A willingness to make available to future generations the objects, images, and primary documents of the recent or the distant past is a precious gift to bestow.

With Best Wishes,

John R. Cross ’76
Secretary of Development and College Relations

Cancer Screening Services Provided to Community

Helping provide cancer screeening to the community

Published: 02.14.12| Updated: 02.14.12

TRAVERSE CITY — The Dole Family Foundation continues a second year of funding for cancer screening services at Planned Parenthood of West and Northern Michigan with a combined two-year gift of $35,000. A significant portion of the Dole gift establishes a fund to provide colposcopy services to Traverse City residents who would otherwise go without this potentially life-saving service.

“Cancer is not only predominant in my Native American community, but in my family as well,” shared one Traverse City client who was directly impacted by the Dole gift. “To me, my health and well being is always a top priority, but this procedure was going to have to wait. I cried with relief when the amazing staff called and told me that they found me help.”

According to the Michigan Cancer Consortium report titled, “The Cancer Burden in Michigan: Selected Statistics,” Grand Traverse, Berrien, Alpena and southeastern Michigan have a higher rate of cervical cancer incidence and mortality than other similar counties in Michigan. Fifty to 60 percent of women who die from invasive cervical cancer have either never had a Pap test, or have not had a Pap test in the past five years. Lack of screening and appropriate follow up - like colposcopy screening - is the most significant risk factor for development of cervical cancer.

“As a family foundation we do not usually donate to health organizations,” expressed Betsy Dole on behalf of the foundation. “Our focus is primarily on the environment, but we chose to make these gifts because of our strong belief in the importance of basic health care. Our intent is to serve women who fall through the cracks and we trust Planned Parenthood to do that for us.”

“Most of the women we see are under or uninsured,” stated Keri McDonald, PPWNM RN. “They would not be having this critical procedure done if not for the Dole’s incredible generosity.”

###

Planned Parenthood of West and Northern Michigan provides reproductive health care and sexuality education services, with locations in eight Michigan cities. Learn more at www.ppwnm.org.

Dole Family Committed to Helping the Great Lakes

Dole Family Committed to Helping the Great Lakes

A freshwater limestone reef that once harbored a vibrant community of lake trout and other Great Lakes fish now sits degraded, pierced by century-old dock posts and damaged by invasive species.

The Nature Conservancy is restoring this reef and others in northern Lake Michigan that are critical spawning grounds for native fish. And they are doing it, in part, with help from the Dole Family Foundation.
“Our family has been coming to the Grand Traverse Bay area each summer for more than 50 years,” said Betsy Dole. “Fishing is among our favorite activities. It’s exciting to think that The Nature Conservancy’s work will restore healthy reefs where young fish can grow and thrive and, perhaps, come back to spawn someday.”
Conservancy scientists are developing and testing techniques for reducing the number of invasive species on the reefs. Rusty crayfish and round gobies eat eggs that native lake trout, lake whitefish and lake herring lay on the reefs when spawning in late fall.
“If we can drive the number of invasive species down in this particular
habitat, we could really benefit the native fish,” said Matt Herbert,
an aquatic ecologist for the Conservancy.

This year, scientists set about 150 traps, covering roughly two acres that include three reefs in Grand Traverse Bay and one in Little Traverse Bay. At each reef, they collect data on the number of crayfish and gobies caught and measure the egg-laying success of native fish to determine whether trapping invasives is improving spawning. For comparison, scientists take similar measurements at reefs with no traps and look at past spawning success data.
Future plans include habitat rehabilitation – adding limestone rocks to degraded reefs, such as the one damaged by dock posts, in hopes of creating better spawning grounds for native fish.
Lake trout, herring and whitefish historically played a big role in Michigan’s fisheries, but invasive species, past overfishing and habitat degradation from coastal development have reduced populations significantly.
The Conservancy hopes that rescuing these reefs will boost native fish populations and help restore a productive Great Lakes’ fishery for commercial fishermen and families like the Doles who just love to fish.

Bottom photo: Support from the Dole Family Foundation is critical to restoring fish spawning reefs in Grand Traverse Bay, Michigan. Courtesy of the Dole Family Foundation

Page 4 

Dole Family Foundation takes fishing seriously!

Dole Family Foundation takes fishing seriously!

The Nature Conservancy is restoring this reef and others in northern Lake Michigan that are critical spawning grounds for native fish. And they are doing it, in part, with help from the Dole Family Foundation.

See more at: Nature Conservancy

- 

Challenges and Benefits to Dam Removal

Challenges and Benefits to Dam Removal

At this gathering we had fun while learning together about environmental issues that small, as well as large, foundations can impact. 

- Reported by Betsy Dole, The Dole Family Foundation