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Carolyn Ward and Alfred Adams
As leaders of the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation, we feel compelled to provide accurate information about our organization and our work to protect the Blue Ridge Parkway in response to the column: âCASEY: As 2020 drew to a close, the Blue Ridge Parkway lost a lot of âFriends,ââ by Dan Casey and published on July 10, 2021, by The Roanoke Times. Our nonprofit organization was not contacted for comment, though it is mentioned frequently in the piece.
First, we would like to commend the volunteers of the organization formerly known as the Friends of the Blue Ridge Parkway (now Friends of the Blue Ridge) for their hard work to beautify and enhance this national park unit. Their dedication to making the Parkway experience better for the millions of annual visitors is truly remarkable.
Once upon a time, there was an organization known as Friends of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Over the course of 32 years, the nonprofit group raised funds to support maintenance and beautification efforts along its 469-mile-long namesake. The parkway is often cited as Americaâs most-visited national park.
In some of those years, the group raised millions of dollars, according to its tax returns. Even more importantly, the organization annually fielded and organized thousands of hours of labor by do-gooding volunteers.
On parkway property, they picked up trash, created and maintained hiking trails, planted viewshed-protecting trees and much more. In 2019 Friends volunteers contributed 13,444 hours of labor. In 2020, which was impacted by the pandemic, it was 9,574 hours.
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