Sustainable South Jersey has announced $3,500 in grants from its Caren Kaufman Memorial Fund to four area organizations, including $780 for the township Rotary Club.
The funds – applied for by the club last month – mark the first donation of the organization to the Rotary. It will pay for the addition of 16 signs to trees along the red and green Cherry Valley Trails.
Mehlam Shakir, a past president and current Rotary member, said the club wants to increase awareness of other trails in the township.
“Almost everybody we ask, how many trails in Cherry Hill?” said Shakir. “And nobody has a clue. We’re trying to spread some awareness that there are hiking trails and they’re in our neighborhoods and they’re being used a lot more since … people really started walking since the pandemic.”
Shakir said the hope is to expand pollinator gardens along the trails where signs will be added.
“There’s been a huge deficit in the number of bees,” he noted. “Don’t know if you’ve seen it on the news. It’s been everywhere. The environmental board of Cherry Hill has been making a lot of effort to make sure (the towship) is a good place.”
Shakir said the Rotary originally sought $1,000 in funds to expand the one pollinator garden already along the trails. But the club has struggled to make people aware of it.
“When we ask people, ‘Do you know about the Rotary Club, they’re like, ‘What is that?'” Shakir acknowledged. “All these years and all these projects and the signs everywhere, and people are still just not aware …”
Shakir believes the reason is the advanced age of club members – though the Rotary has worked with the Interact Club at East High – making it harder to branch out.
“Right now, it’s more dominated by older people and we’ve been trying to change that,” he explained. “We’ve had some success with that. We work very closely with the Cherry Hill schools. We have monthly projects going on with (them) …”
The Rotary has been around since 1955 and currently has 18 members; few have joined in the last decade, while others passed away.
Sustainable South Jersey also gave $2,756 this year to the Field to Flight Foundation, which advances conservation by promoting sustainable agriculture and improving habitats; the Oaklyn Shade Tree Committee; and the Merchantville Green Team.
Sustainable South Jersey began in 2006, and every year awards three to six grants between $500 and $1,000, depending on fundraising. Board member Dana Patterson said the township grant was below $1,000 because the organization expected the trails to be more impactful.
“We wanted to be able to fund as many projects as we can,” she noted. “So we really thought the arbor trail was something that was very impactful. The pollinator garden is something that I believe we funded in the past in previous years. And so we just wanted to focus on the new project for this round.”
Board president Mike Moore pointed out that Sustainable South Jersey decides what to fund based on a rubric that include various criteria.
“We had to be mindful what we wanted to spend as well,” he said. “So although it was kind of a difficult decision … we saw the arbor trail as something that was really impactful. And the criteria, when we look at the rubric, we have various criteria about how it impacts the community … beyond seasonally and so forth.
“That was part of our decision to focus on the arbor trail.”
After the sign project is finished, likely by the end of the summer, Moore said Sustainable South Jersey plans to see how it turned out, something it does with all the projects it funds. The only other township project from the organization in Cherry Hill was $1,000 for expanding a pollinator garden run by the Cherry Hill Environmental Board.
