Evergreen Conservancy, an all-volunteer organization based in Indiana County, Pennsylvania, works to preserve, protect, and steward the area’s natural, cultural, and historical resources. Water quality is a core focus: the Conservancy conducts manual testing of local streams and maintains continuous monitoring stations that track conditions on waterways such as Blacklick Creek and Laurel Run. This work is carried out in partnership with the Indiana County Conservation District and Emergency Management Agency and contributes data to regional monitoring networks.
In May 2025, Colcom Foundation awarded Evergreen Conservancy a grant to support an AmeriCorps member focused on volunteer coordination, educational programming, outreach, and day-to-day operations. For a small all-volunteer group, the position provides essential capacity that helps sustain monitoring, data management, newsletter production, membership coordination, and community engagement.
The 2025–2026 AmeriCorps member successfully advanced these priorities, contributing to the standardization and maintenance of dataloggers, volunteer training, educational activities, and communications. The Conservancy’s newest AmeriCorps member is a recent graduate of Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s ecology and conservation biology program and began her service in September 2026. She brings field experience across Pennsylvania and a strong interest in conservation education and native plants, and is already supporting datalogger work, outreach, and programming alongside the Indiana County Conservation District.
Recent Conservancy activities include community events, educational partnerships with IUP students at the Tanoma AMD Wetlands site, and continued stream monitoring supported by Colcom funding. That support has helped purchase three new dataloggers along with field readers for the Indiana County stream monitoring project, as well as water quality standards used to calibrate the dataloggers. The Conservancy monitors 25 streams throughout the year, and the AmeriCorps member assists with uploading water quality data to the Three Rivers Quest (3RQ) monitoring system. Colcom Foundation is also a longtime supporter of 3RQ, the WVU-led regional water-quality program that makes this shared data available to researchers, agencies, and the public.
Colcom Foundation’s support for Evergreen Conservancy aligns with its broader commitment to watershed health, environmental stewardship, and access to nature in southwestern Pennsylvania. By helping an all-volunteer group maintain consistent monitoring and community programming, the grant contributes to cleaner local waterways and greater public engagement with the natural resources of Indiana County.