Last week, we hosted our 46th Annual Environmental Gala! There was quite a leadup to the event itself, and after a live broadcast on Facebook and a Premiere on YouTube, everyone at the Society got to breathe a sigh of relief. In case you missed the Gala, you can watch the full video now on YouTube! But, in case you were looking for something more newspaper adjacent to go with your morning Coffee, we’ll also be summarizing it here!
A Lot of the footage for this year’s Gala actually came directly from our Summer celebration of the 30th Anniversary of the Pine Barrens Protection Act’s signing! We covered that whole event in a separate blog post back over the summer, but we’ll run it down quickly here. Opening speeches from Executive Director Dick Amper and Society Board Member Tom Casey opened the event, with kind remembrance of the work done and some light humor. After they got their words in, a number of local politicians took the stage to recount their own experiences with the Pine Barrens Protection act, and where they were when the Act was passed. This section of the Gala was closed out with some music from the Sunnyland Jazz Band, the same band that played all those years ago when the act was first signed!
John Turner, John Cryan, Ed Romaine, and Dick Amper
The next section of the Gala was a recounting of our yearly Middle School Kids Go To College program, with a brand new video produced just for the Gala! In it, We showed off some of the event itself, from our grand assembly of 3 different schools at Stony Brook University, to our individual visits to each school, you’ll get to see every bit of the program right from the comfort of your home! Once we were done at the schools, we went back to our 30th anniversary celebration to present individual awards to some of the winning students!
Dr. Christopher Gobler and Dick Amper
Finally, the event closed out with an important presentation by Society Board Member and environmentalist John Turner on our new initiative, The Best of The Rest. In his presentation John covered all the different parcels we’re still fighting to preserve, as well as the various flora and fauna which inhabit the parcels. Not naming this year’s gala after the initiative doesn’t mean we’re pushing The Best of The Rest any less, and we’re always working behind the scenes with local government and other non-profits to try and secure as much of the land for preservation as possible.
John Turner speaking about The Best of The Rest
And with that, our Gala was closed out by Executive Director Dick Amper, before shifting into some highlights of our special Silent Auction (which may or may not be over by the time you read this). The Gala season is, to put it lightly, a bit of a busy time for us, but every bit of the work we do is worth it to share with people our continual progress and history.
We hope you enjoyed watching Splash: Clean Water Now as much as we enjoyed putting it on. We’ll see you next year for our 47th Gala!
By Andrew Wong, Long Island Pine Barrens Society
