Vendor Spotlight: Alliance for the Shenandoah Valley
Some of the best parts of a Headwaters retreat are things no one had to plan: the ridgeline at golden hour, a cold clear stream, a spring drive down Route 340 when the redbuds are in bloom. Those views don't stay that way by accident. This week we're featuring the people who make caring for them their life's work: the Alliance for the Shenandoah Valley.
The Alliance is both young and deeply rooted. It officially launched in 2018, when several long-standing, county-based conservation groups decided they could do more together than apart. Each of those groups had been started by neighbors who cared about their own corner of the Valley. Today the Alliance, based in New Market, serves six counties (Augusta, Frederick, Page, Rockingham, Shenandoah, and Warren County, VA) and the towns within them, including Front Royal.
Warren County, VA's piece of that story is the Scenic 340 Project. Formed in 1999 by residents devoted to the Route 340 corridor between Front Royal and Luray, Scenic 340 helped conserve more than 2,300 acres of forest and farmland, creating a wildlife corridor linking Shenandoah National Park and the George Washington National Forest. Through Project Redbud, volunteers replanted native redbud trees along the route. Scenic 340 formally joined the Alliance in 2019.
Leading the Alliance is Executive Director Kate Wofford, whose path to the Valley winds through some beautiful country. Originally from Greenville, South Carolina, Kate graduated with honors from Washington and Lee University, earned a master's degree in forest science from Yale in 2002, and spent years doing conservation work out West, including directing conservation for the Wood River Land Trust in central Idaho. She led the Shenandoah Valley Network from 2009 until it became part of the Alliance in 2018, and in 2022 the Southern Environmental Law Center honored her with its James S. Dockery, Jr. Southern Environmental Leadership Award. Kate has shared that every trip home to Greenville, seeing what the Swamp Rabbit Trail has done for its communities, fuels her enthusiasm for the proposed 49-mile Shenandoah Rail Trail, with Front Royal as its northern end.
Closer to home, Page and Warren County Coordinator Chris Anderson brings more than 20 years of local conservation work, including service as Page County's environmental coordinator. She is also a photographer and watercolor artist who paints the Valley's historic buildings, native plants, butterflies, and trees. Representing Warren County, VA on the board is Christine Hartman, who served as a Peace Corps forestry volunteer in Mali, West Africa, before settling west of the Blue Ridge. She and her husband bought a small farm in Browntown in 2005 and are still lovingly restoring its 19th-century farmhouse.
This spring the Alliance brought "conservation speed-dating" to Rockland in Warren County, VA: hands-on workshops pairing landowners one on one with experts on rain gardens, native plantings, and streambank care.
For retreat groups, especially mission-driven nonprofits and Giveback Getaways, the Alliance's work is both the backdrop and a story worth hearing. Every group that paddles the river, drives Skyline Drive, or winds along the back roads south of Front Royal is enjoying a landscape that people like Kate, Chris, and Christine work to keep whole. Headwaters can weave that conservation story right into your retreat.
Visit shenandoahalliance.org to learn more about the Alliance for the Shenandoah Valley.
When you are ready to plan a retreat rooted in the landscape that makes this Valley special, make Headwaters your first call.
Headwaters — The Passage | headwatersretreats.com
