To the Editor:

On behalf of the board and staff of the Friends of Princeton Open Space (FOPOS), I would like to thank everyone who helped to make our September 19th Fall Fest celebration such a success. The Fall Fest is our biggest annual fundraiser and helps to support our interns, our ongoing land preservation and ecological restoration efforts, and our environmental education programming.

The Fall Fest is also an occasion to acknowledge the many volunteers who help us bring our mission to life — this year, more than 950 volunteers who have put in almost 2,000 hours at nearly 70 stewardship sessions.

Being able to celebrate with the community at Mountain Lakes House makes us doubly proud and happy to have been able to help preserve the house and six acres in 1988, and the rest of the Billy Johnson Mountain Lakes Nature Preserve (70 acres) in 1986. Many of those who worked with us and Mrs. Betty Wold Johnson, the Nature Conservancy, and the Township to achieve this are gone, but their spirits live on in this incredible community asset. At the Fall Fest event, these efforts were reflected in the heartfelt remarks of our college and high school interns about the connection they feel with this land.

There are too many individual contributors to name here, but we would like to use this space to thank the corporate and business sponsors of this year’s event:  Genmab, Hamilton Mercer Advisors, Bracco Diagnostics, Princeton Dental Group, Sylmarie Trowbridge for Callaway Henderson Sotheby’s International Realty, and MJ Sagan Architecture.

Wendy Mager

Board President, Friends of Princeton Open Space

Mountain Avenue