Some backstory: How did LERN get established?

LERN was the natural progression of the Reedy Creek Environmental (RCE) organization, started by LERN president Bill Shanabruch. Reedy Creek Environmental was created in 2016 to address the scarcity of native plants in the metro Richmond, VA area. The recognition of this need evolved over many years and grew directly out of his concerns about water quality.

During the previous 15 years, Bill was employed by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) as an aquatic biologist, spending most of his time performing assessments of freshwater streams. Over time, his primary work function evolved into “documenting the deterioration of Virginia streams” (there being precious little progress in improving the streams he identified as impaired).

In an effort to contribute to the improvement of Virginia’s water resources, Bill joined with others in the community to form the Reedy Creek Coalition (RCE) in 2008. RCE committed itself to addressing the root causes of the water quality problems in Reedy Creek. As an urban watershed, this entailed reducing the pollution coming from rooftops, parking lots, lawns, and other sources of stormwater runoff. RCE even partnered with the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay to create a watershed protection program for private property owners. 

The original pilot program highly encouraged vegetative solutions (rain gardens, bayscapes and tree planting) to help solve stormwater problems. Native plants were emphasized because of their benefits to water quality, as well as to enhancing the health and diversity of terrestrial habitats.

During its implementation of the watershed protection program, members of RCE learned about Earth Sangha, a non-profit in northern Virginia that supplies native plants of local ecotype. Earth Sangha collects seeds from healthy populations of local natives, then germinates them and sells the seedlings to the local community. Earth Sangha also provides plants for a variety of habitat restoration projects. The key idea is that its plants are direct descendants of local plants that had originally adapted to the climate and soils of northern Virginia. (By contrast, most nurseries that sell “native” plants have no idea of their origins.) RCE modeled itself after Earth Sangha, and remain indebted to Lisa Bright, its co-founder, for her inspiration, knowledge, and support.

Through the continuing efforts of RCE, the metro Richmond community could now buy plants derived from seeds known to have originated within its own local area.

But there was so much demand! As RCE grew, it became apparent that expanding this work would be critically important. For that to happen, changes needed to be made. A for-profit framework just didn’t seem to be the best fit: Many seeds came from public places such as James River Park (with permits, of course) and the plants were going back to public places via the work of volunteer organizations (whose members had also expressed interest in participating in the nursery operations). Furthermore, grants and donor contributions would be needed to really bring things up to speed.

In the end, transitioning RCE into the nonprofit Local Richmond Ecotype Natives (LERN) made the most sense. As a nonprofit, LERN can now garner the support of volunteers to increase our capacity to produce native plants – allowing us to expand the outreach and educational efforts that RCE performed.