Boy Scout shelter clean up

Foothills Equestrian Nature Center staff and board members are excited to be moving forward and looking into the future regarding the organization as a whole. If you have never visited FENCE before we are a unique non-profit organization that serves the community in many different areas.

As our name states we are both an equestrian center and a nature center based in Tryon, N.C. on 384 acres of land. The mission of FENCE is to serve as a community resource for the preservation of green space and for educational and recreational opportunities linking nature, animals and people.

To accomplish this mission successfully it became clear in the last few years that our trails were in need of some maintenance. With our 384 acres of land we have about five miles of nature trails that are open to the public from sunrise to sunset 365 days of the year.

In an effort to make our trails more user-friendly and accessible to the public, FENCE is hard at work updating the trails, trail signage and trail maps. As a small non-profit, FENCE relies on the hard work of community volunteers to keep running.

On the weekend of April 30, a large group of Boy Scouts from South Carolina camped on the FENCE property. During their time spent at FENCE they collaborated with Chuck Hearon to give back to the community and help clean up the wooded area behind the Boy Scout shelter. They spent their time clearing out the area and loading debris into a trailer to be removed.

Last Saturday, May 14, Chuck Hearon, Amy Schmitte, and two community volunteers, Anna Sain and TJ Sain, gathered on a section of Hardwoods Trail. With the help of these volunteers we were able to remove debris from a section of trail making it much more attractive to hikers.

FENCE would like to send a big thank you out to all of our volunteers. You all are the backbone of our organization and we could not strive without you.

In an effort to clean up our trails FENCE is planning on holding a few volunteer trail workdays in the near future. If you are interested in volunteering at FENCE please contact Amy Schmitte at 828-859-9021 or education@fence.org.

Foothills Equestrian Nature Center is located at 3381 Hunting Country Road in Tryon, N.C.

-Submitted by Amy Schmitte