Kathleen Hart

Resident of Canterbury
Winner of the 2016 Dave Engelman Volunteer Benchmark Award

“I’ve been involved at the Center at Pomfret for 10 to 15 years or longer. It happened because I admired Sarah Heminway [the center director] and what she was doing. I travel a distance to get up there – 20 to 30 minutes – and so it had to be something that I wanted to do. Sarah was doing such wonderful things. She used to say, ‘Kathleen always had her boots in the car and is always ready to help.’

“When I see somebody doing wonderful things, I want to do what I can. I pick and choose my places and the Connecticut Audubon Center at Pomfret was the place I wanted to help out.”

Join Kathleen as a Member of the Connecticut Audubon Society!

“At this point in my life I’ve been able to do a little bit. The grant was first [Kathleen wrote a successful grant application to fund a Connecticut Audubon citizen science project in Canterbury]. So then I said to the elementary school that if the PTA would pay half I’d pay half, and so we underwrote our school field trip programs to make Canterbury students receive science enrichment programs. It’s been wonderful. The K-4 classes get a visit from Sarah in each classroom, and then a field trip in spring or summer.

“At the library, a girl from Fish and Wildlife came in. We have a hazardous waste dump in Canterbury, so there’s federal money for environmental projects. She asked me for ideas. We ended up with a grant for a citizen science project that found and identified vernal pools in town and did a bio-assessment of streams.

“Every time we do something and I see kids or adults realize what there is in nature, and what’s going on, and they send me notes – all the things they saw and what they came out with afterwards, the adults becoming close friends: It’s wonderful. To touch all these people! We’re out in the woods here; we have a fantastic resource. Any time I can touch somebody – wow, I love that!”