January Director’s Message
Dear Friends of the Eno,
Happy New Year! While I may be violating an unspoken agreement between nonprofit executive directors that has been in place for decades, I am choosing not to focus my message on resolutions this month. I will keep my weight loss goals confidential this year—thank you very much! Instead, I’d like to speak to an issue that is foundational to ERA in a very real way: advocacy.
This agency would not exist without the community organizing and advocacy led by Margaret Nygard in the mid 1960s to prevent the damming of the Eno River.
Anyone that has lost a loved one knows that stories are one of the primary means used to keep memories alive. It has been absolutely wonderful over the last year to have so many of you share stories about Margaret with me. Each of you, in a real way, is ensuring that her legacy lives on.
I have learned the hard way that the mere mention of your alma mater can invite scorn when you live on Tobacco Road. So I share with deliberate humility that I have a double major in political science and psychology from Carolina. Psychology helps me better understand individual human behavior, while political science speaks to the nature of collective behavior.
I’ve interned for members of Congress on Capitol Hill and in my home district. Advocacy and organizing have been long-time interests of mine. So I have to admit, somewhat sheepishly, that it has taken me longer than expected since my arrival to get ERA’s Land Use & Advocacy Committee off the ground.
The Committee recently met on December 15th with an ambitious agenda. Ably chaired by ERA Board Member and former Durham County Commissioner Ellen Reckhow, the group discussed proposed changes to Durham’s Unified Development Ordinance (UDO), the status of Black Meadow Ridge (more to come on this), planned presentations to elected officials in Orange and Durham, and the need for decision-making tools to help inform the nature and scale of our involvement in environmental issues at the local, state and national levels.
There is clearly much work to do.
I invite you, our membership, to continue Margaret’s legacy and to support ERA’s advocacy efforts. You can learn more about volunteering at ERA here. Click the “Become a Volunteer” link at the base of the page to share more about your skills and interests.
We’d love to have you join the Land Use & Advocacy Committee, or any of our other standing committees, to help us move our work forward. If you’ve been resolving to do more for our community, this is your chance! And I know that my colleagues will be delighted that I found a way to weave resolutions into my January message!
All kidding aside, thank you for supporting the Eno River Association and the Eno.
We couldn’t do our work without you.
Sincerely,
Ryan J. Fehrman
