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Glen planning
historic fundraiser
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| Hugh Taylor Birch, who
donated Glen Helen to Antioch College, in the Glen. |
Next weekend Yellow Springers have an opportunity to
both celebrate a village treasure and to help ensure its survival.
The Hugh Taylor Birch 75th Memorial Celebration,
sponsored by the Glen Helen Ecology Institute, will take place Saturday,
April 3, from 4 to 7 p.m., at Whitehall Farm, at the home of Sharon and
David Neuhardt. The fundraising event for the Glen will feature live music,
a silent auction and refreshments. Tickets are $50 per person.
“Everybody in our community has been touched
by the Glen. It means so much to so many people,” said David Hergesheimer,
the chairman of the Glen Helen Board. “But like many things, we take
it for granted. The Glen is a natural area but it depends on humans to protect
it.”
This year marks the 75th anniversary of the date
that Hugh Taylor Birch, who attended Antioch College before dropping out
in 1869, bequeathed much of the Glen’s 1,000 acres to Antioch College
in memory of his daughter, Helen Birch Bartlett, who died in 1925.
The gift followed a meeting in Florida between Birch
and Lucy Morgan, during which Morgan, the wife of then-Antioch President
Arthur Morgan, persuaded Birch to make the donation. A reenactment of that
fateful meeting will be performed during the April 3 event.
As a student at Antioch, Birch spent countless hours
in what today is called Glen Helen, and he viewed the Glen as an extension
of campus, a place of study for Antioch students.
After leaving Antioch, he practiced law in Chicago
and had made his fortune in the real estate business. The Morgans cultivated
his interest and he moved his summer residence to Yellow Springs. He also
began to acquire and consolidate the modern Glen, which until 1929, was
controlled by several landowners and Antioch.
Proceeds from the fundraising event will supplement
the Glen’s operating budget, said Bob Whyte, executive director of
the Glen Helen Ecology Institute. This year GHEI needs to raise at least
$110,000 from donations, he said, to meet the Glen’s operating budget
of about $700,000.
Many donors say they prefer to fund the Glen’s
special projects, said Whyte, which makes raising funds for operating expenses
more difficult.
“It’s one thing we struggle with,”
he said. “People want to give for specific items but not for operations.
But we really need operations money so we can do the stewardship, fix the
buildings and provide the programs that people want. The needs are tremendous.”
The Glen Helen Ecology Institute employs 11 people,
both full- and part-time, including the staff of the Outdoor Education Center
and the Raptor Center. Currently, the GHEI does not have a professional
development person for fundraising needs, Whyte said, so that activity falls
to the staff and the board.
Both Hergesheimer and Whyte hope that villagers
and out-of-town Glen lovers as well, attend the Hugh Taylor Birch 75th Memorial
Celebration to have a good time and to support their local nature preserve.
“Not too many communities have such a treasure
in their backyard and these types of treasures are disappearing,”
Whyte said.
Tickets for the event may be purchased at the Glen
Helen Building or by mail, Glen Helen Ecology Institute, 405 Corry Street,
Yellow Springs, Ohio, 45387.
—Diane Chiddister |
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