Scarborough Land Trust has received a $50,000 matching gift challenge from anonymous donors to help reach its $500,000 fundraising goal to purchase and conserve the Benjamin Farm property. The campaign has raised $400,000 to date. New gifts to the campaign will be matched dollar for dollar up to $50,000, to raise the final $100,000 needed.
“Benjamin Farm has galvanized the community like no other project in the history of the land trust,” said Executive Director Kathy Mills. “This inspired matching gift challenge from special friends of the land trust will double the impact of every gift made from now to our final $500,000 goal. For anyone who has been waiting to make a gift, now is the time.”
Total costs to purchase and conserve the 135-acre Benjamin Farm property on Pleasant Hill Road are $2.5 million. In June, the Town Council unanimously approved $2 million from the Town’s Land Bond Fund. A Campaign Committee of community volunteers has been working to raise the final $500,000 needed by Dec. 31, when the land trust must close on the property.
Benjamin Farm is one of the last open spaces in one of the most densely populated areas of Scarborough. The property consists of open fields, woods and wetlands, and contains headwaters of the Spurwink River. It abuts Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge land, and other conservation land. The land trust plans trails on the property, which will be open to the public year-round.
“Benjamin Farm is a huge project for the land trust,” said Campaign Chair Betts Armstrong. “We are so grateful for the many wonderful gifts we have received to date. We welcome all gifts, large and small, to help us meet the match. This is a true community effort to protect a beautiful Scarborough property forever.”
To make a gift, donors can mail a check to Scarborough Land Trust, P.O. Box 1237, Scarborough ME 04070. Be sure to note it is for Benjamin Farm. For more information, call the land trust at (207) 289-1199 or visit www.scarboroughlandtrust.org, where donors can also make gifts online.
Scarborough Land Trust conserves land for public benefit, and has protected over 1,200 acres to date. It has created trail networks on four of its properties which are open to the public year-round: Libby River Farm, Fuller Farm, Sewell Woods and Broadturn Farm, which has one of the largest organic farms in Greater Portland. In 2012, the land trust protected the 156-acre Warren Woods property. The Portland Museum of Art recently donated an easement to the land trust to permanently protect the land and view shed of the iconic Winslow Homer Studio at Prouts Neck.
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