COLUMBUS - Grange Insurance Audubon Center (GIAC) was recently awarded a $75,000 matching grant from the Maggie Walker Incentive Fund to launch Audubon Great Lakes’s Wild Indigo Nature Explorations community engagement program, to build lasting relationships between neighboring communities of color and their local natural areas through leadership development of young people from Central Ohio. The Wild Indigo program will include a new full-time center staff position, expand youth leadership and create multigenerational community engagement in Columbus, Ohio.
The new Wild Indigo coordinator position at GIAC will develop creative and lasting community partnerships that will provide education and engagement programming to address barriers that prevent communities of color from experiencing and enjoying their local natural areas. Wild Indigo’s flexible and ever-evolving curriculum is determined by the community’s concerns and aims to tackle local environmental and societal issues in order to strengthen bonds between families and their local outdoor spaces.
“The Wild Indigo Nature Explorations program will build and strengthen the Centers’ foundation and core belief that everyone should have access to nature and the opportunity to connect to natural spaces right here in Columbus,” said Leigh Ann Miller, Center Director for Grange Insurance Audubon Center. “We are looking forward to hiring a new coordinator for this program and officially launching it later this spring.”
"As the only urban nature center in our city, the Grange Insurance Audubon Center continues to enrich the lives and minds of Columbus residents," said Grange Insurance EVP, Chief Operations Officer Doreen DeLaney Crawley. "At Grange, we're committed to building thriving and vibrant communities and are excited for Wild Indigo Nature Explorations to launch this spring and provide local families and children with engaging, culturally resonant experiences that induce a deeper connection with nature."
The matching grant is made possible through the National Audubon Society’s Maggie Walker Institute for Audubon Center Innovation. This huge commitment challenges Audubon’s centers to reimagine everything that they can be in communities. Maggie Walker, board chair for the National Audubon Society stated, “The future is going to be very different than the reality we’ve known, so we’ve got to build capacity in the field to be deeply responsive and inclusive with communities. People need to own this work at the community level. We have to build creative and strategic capacity, which means bringing in more voices and ideas and creating the kind of resilience that allows us to try new things and succeed in ways we didn’t allow ourselves to imagine before.”
The expansion of Audubon Great Lakes’ Wild Indigo Nature Exploration program in Columbus, Ohio at the Grange Insurance Audubon Center is currently 50 percent matched with additional support received from the Grange Insurance Company, Harry C. Moores Foundation and Limited Brands Foundation. Organizations interested in supporting this program and helping the Grange Insurance Audubon Center reach 100 percent of the match should contact Leigh Ann Miller, center director at Leighann.miller@audubon.org.
Grange Insurance Audubon Center is currently accepting applications for a Wild Indigo Coordinator. Apply now at the National Audubon Society Career Center:
The Wild Indigo Nature Explorations was developed by Audubon Great Lakes in 2013 and operates in five cities around the Great Lakes region including Chicago, Gary, Milwaukee, Detroit and now Columbus. For more information visit, https://gl.audubon.org/bird-friendly-communities/wild-indigo-nature-explorations
###
The Grange Insurance Audubon Center’s mission is to awaken and connect participants to the beauty of the natural world in the heart of Columbus and inspire environmental stewardship in their daily lives.
