2024 Partnership Award
Wenley Ferguson (left) and Kate McPherson (right) flagging a wetland edge in Newport in April 2025 as part of plans to improve stormwater in the Almy Pond watershed.
(Following is the presentation of the Rhode Island Trout Unlimited 2024 Partnership Award presented by Glenn Place, Rhode Island TU President, at the RITU Annual Fundraiser Banquet on April 5, 2025, with 125 attendees at the Quonset “O” Club.)
The Rhode Island Trout Unlimited Partnership Award is presented to an individual or organization who has had a significant role in enabling and supporting Rhode Island TU in achieving its mission, conservation goals and milestones.
Some of the criteria for the award are as follows:
Participation as a key leader or role model by providing products, resources, and services, as well as time, energy, and knowledge necessary to enhance and enable Rhode Island TU to pursue and complete mission-related activities, projects, goals, and initiatives.
Promoting interest in the Chapter’s activities, projects, and meetings throughout both the Chapter’s and the partner’s communities.
Helping Rhode Island Trout Unlimited pursue its brand throughout the Conservation and Fishing community by collaborating with other like-minded organizations, non-profits, GMO’s and NGO’s
Some background about this year’s recipient:
However ambitious our goals and priorities are, we cannot achieve them without partnerships. Partnering with a well-run, state-wide, nationally known organization benefits both parties.
Like our Chapter, they are an independent, member-supported, nonprofit organization that protects, restores, and improves the ecological health of our local waters. However, their charge is much larger.
They foster an understanding and sense of personal responsibility among the next generation of conservation stewards through education programs that engage children and adults.
They watch over the government and citizenry for proposals or activities that will degrade the environmental quality of the Bay, basin, and watershed, and they champion policies and legislation that maintain strong protection for our natural resources.
They got their start as a grassroots organization in 1970, when a small group of concerned citizens came together to fight an oil refinery proposed for the shores of Tiverton.
This organization actively works in the field to rebuild and restore habitats compromised by pollution, outdated infrastructure, storms, and sea level rise.
This tour-de-force knows that the residents of Rhode Island deserve clean water throughout our state, and so do our trout. With their help and collaboration, maybe we can restore habitat and connectivity to once again see and enjoy the elusive sea run Brook Trout in Rhode Island.
Without further ado, I would like to invite Wenley Ferguson, Director of Habitat Restoration and Kate McPherson, Narraganset Bay Riverkeeper from Save the Bay to accept the 2024 Rhode Island TU Partnership Award.
