Connecting People
With Nature
Wachiska Program and General Meeting —
Thursday, September 11, 7:00 PM, Unitarian Church, 6300 A Street,
and also via YouTube link: https://youtube.com/live/SSxIVs_IfHk?feature=share
Community Crops
With Executive Director, Megan McGuffey
Dr. Megan McGuffey is originally from Southwestern Kansas where she learned a love of the land and growing food from her family. She is the Executive Director of Community Crops in Lincoln, Nebraska. Megan earned her Master of Public Administration and her Ph.D. in from the UNO School of Public Administration. Her research focuses on food and farm policy and she has co-authored food assessments for regional and statewide food policy organizations.
Dr. McGuffey is engaged in local food work across the state of Nebraska. She has served on the Nebraska Legislature’s Community Garden Task Force, the Lincoln-Lancaster County Food Policy Council, and the Local Foods Coordinating Council and Share Our Table in the Omaha-Council Bluffs region. She co-chairs the Mayor's Community Committee on Local Food for the City of Lincoln.
Community Crops was started in 2003 with a single community garden. Today it’s grown to cover eleven gardens, two farms, an urban ag plot, and two production greenhouses, totaling nearly nineteen acres. Each year, Community Crops helps over 200 families (600+ individuals) grow healthy food through land access and educational support. The majority of clients are low-to-moderate income and come from all diverse backgrounds, including many New Americans.
The Community Crops Program enjoys a partnership with Wachiska Audubon for their five-acre training farm at Prairie Pines. The training farm first moved to Prairie Pines in 2012. This space allows beginning farmers the opportunity to try out farming with low barriers to entry through technical assistance, low-cost plot fees, and access to shared equipment and infrastructure. All Community Crops spaces require organic practices, modeling and teaching a more sustainable way of farming. Conservation features at Wachiska’s Prairie Pines Training Farm include extensive cover cropping, an agroforestry plot, and a food forest.
Dr. McGuffey's talk will share how Community Crops operates and include incredible stories of the diverse gardeners and farmers who grow local food through the program.
Join Wachiska on Thursday, September 11 at 7:00 PM at Lincoln’s Unitarian Church, 6300 A Street.
This free, in-person talk will also be live-streamed on YouTube at:
https://youtube.com/live/SSxIVs_IfHk?feature=share No registration needed.
September 2025 Calendar of Events
September 2 Education and Outreach Committee
via zoom, 6:00 p.m.
September 8 Conservation Committee via zoom, 6:30 p.m.
September 11 General Meeting and Speaker Series,
Megan McGuffey
7:00 p.m., in-person meeting at Unitarian
Church and also live-streamed; no
registration needed (see link above)
September 15 Newsletter Deadline, Wachiska Office, 5:00 p.m.
September 16 Board Meeting via Zoom, 7:00 p.m. via zoom
Join Wachiska Today
Become a member of the Wachiska chapter of the National Audubon Society and support environmental conservation, education, and outreach in Southeast Nebraska.
Click HERE for details.
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In September 2021, the Wachiska Board adopted the National Audubon’s Statement on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion as the Chapter’s own goals:
The birds Audubon pledges to protect differ in color, size, behavior, geographical preference, and countless other ways. By honoring and celebrating the equally remarkable diversity of the human species, Audubon will bring new creativity, effectiveness and leadership to our work throughout the hemisphere.
Wachiska Audubon Society's vision is to share the experience and love for nature and help protect its diversity.
Join friends and neighbors to show your concern about our climate and our elected officials. Stop by the Wachiska office and pick up your Climate yard sign.
Signs that say “VOTE with CLIMATE in Mind” are available for $10 each. They are made of material that will hold up well to the elements and come with a metal holder to push into the ground. You are encouraged to put your signs out now for the fall elections. Since they are so durable, they could easily last three or four years even if kept out all year.
NEW! Wachiska is on YouTube
The photos on this website were taken by Wachiska members. Many thanks to Bruce Wendorff,
Linda Brown, Paul Johnsguard, Tim Knott, Stu Luttich, John Carlini and Elizabeth Nelson.