Our big news! Vesper Meadow Education Program merges with The Understory Initiative

Good news for native species habitat in southern Oregon! We are excited to announce that Vesper Meadow Education Program merging with The Understory Initiative. This means that Vesper Meadow Education Program is now a Program of The Understory Initiative, sharing the same 501c3 status and combining overhead and other operating expenses. And effectively, the combination of TUI’s restoration expertise and VMEP”s education programming will enable more successful restoration of native habitats through community stewardship - and ultimately provide benefit to pollinator and wildlife habitat, increased landscape resilience to climate change, and an activated conservation community.

The TUI and VMEP mission and work are closely aligned:

Vesper Meadow Education Program is working to inspire a culture of land stewardship and nature connection. 

The Understory Initiative’s mission is to Facilitate the Restoration and Conservation of Native Species Habitat Through Partnership & Community Engagement.

The-Understory-Initiative-Vesper-Meadow


We already have some collaborative work underway:

  • TUI and VMEP are coordinating with partners like the Klamath Bird Observatory to initiate grassland habitat restoration and continued monitoring for imperiled species, the Oregon Vesper Sparrow and Klamath Mardon Skipper.

  • Indigenous Gardens program development

At Vesper Meadow, we are making adjustments and keeping busy:

  • Partnering with regional educators to create curriculum and online video tools for teachers and parents working with students at home during the COVID-19 pandemic at this time

  • Developing educational resources for community science; a Southern Oregon Bumble Bee Identification Guidebook and a Cascade-Siskiyou Butterfly Monitoring Network volunteer training webinar

  • Working with the Native American Studies Department at Southern Oregon University to create a southern Oregon network to increase tribal access to cultural resources on their ancestral lands

  • Mentoring two graduate student interns to gain experience with ecological career skills and to support native food plant restoration at Vesper Meadow.

For more of our latest work, stay tuned at www.VesperMeadow.org or on our facebook page for daily updates. Thank you again for supporting our work and sharing our vision of building a culture of land stewardship here in southern Oregon.

Jeanine Moy