CALC's mission

It is the Cadillac Area Land Conservancy's mission to promote and educate the residents of the four county area of Wexford, Osceola, Missaukee, and Lake Counties as to the benefits of preserving open spaces in behalf of the entire community. We offer our services to identify lands, with significant natural resources, in those areas and to acquire conservation easements and fee simple donations of that land. CALC will provide the responsible stewardship for all holdings and assure all restrictions remain in place in perpetuity on behalf of the donor and the community.

The history of CALC

On August 7, 1995 two individuals from Wexford County traveled to the Petoskey area to meet with John Rowe, the attorney for and an activist in behalf of the Little Traverse Conservancy. This set in motion the establishment of a Michigan nonprofit corporation (501) with the appropriate articles of incorporation and bylaws. Within two months a small group of volunteers offered their willingness to be directors on the first Board, all with some experience in the areas that were needed. The first two donations to the Cadillac Area Land Conservancy were conservation easements on properties from the same individuals who began it. George Rock donated 11 acres on Stoneledge Lake and Tom Rensberry donated 360 acres in Cherry Grove Township.

At one of our first Board meetings in December of 1995 and in efforts to promote conservation projects, it was suggested that we have a walking path along the Clam River from the shores of Lake Cadillac, downstream as far as we could get, perhaps even to the CASA fields. This was quite an ambitious project. We agreed to begin the project, announced the project, and set up a program to solicit funds to get the project started. To this day, CALC is the conduit for obtaining funds to complete the project.

When on May 5, 1999 the Cadillac Area Land Conservancy was acknowledged in an article in the Michigan State Bar Journal, the founders felt that we had cleared the first and most significant "hurdle" and were well on our way to a functioning conservancy.

The original Board recognized that the four county area of Wexford, Osceola, Missaukee, and Lake Counties had demographics that would not suggest many donations of conservation easements or properties in fee to the Conservancy. There were no delusions that money donations, the life blood of 501 charitable institutions, would amount to the large sums of money that we needed to promote, operate, and preserve conservation easements. However, we were pleasantly surprised that in spite of those demographics, CALC has flourished and is a viable, important community resource.