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Dear Friend of MCV,

For seven years, I have had the pleasure to sit at the table with Jennifer Burns Gray and Roger Berle as members of the Maine Conservation Voters' Board of Directors. They have both added so much in this critical work protecting Maine's environment.

Please join me in honoring them as they leave MCV's board with a donation that will support the very work that they have devoted so much of their time to. You can make a donation in honor of Jenn here [[link removed]] and Roger here [[link removed]] . Included with your donation is the opportunity to notify them immediately with your words of appreciation for their service to Maine's environment.

I specifically appreciate that Roger has consistently elevated the need for bipartisan support for conservation issues. Likewise, I thank Jenn for being a champion for MCV's work to advance equity, inclusion, and racial justice action. Both Roger and Jenn worked to ensure that a diversity of voices are a critical part of this work.

Their legacy will continue as the staff and board of directors work together toward our shared vision of a strengthened democracy and a cleaner environment. Read more below about Jenn and Roger's commitment to protecting Maine's environment over many years. And, then please join me in honoring Jenn [[link removed]] and Roger [[link removed]] with gifts in their names today.

With appreciation,



Adam Lee, Board of Directors, President




Jenn Burns Gray: “ I grew up in suburban New Jersey where spending time outside in nature wasn't a popular activity. However, I was able to escape to my grandparents' home in rural Vermont several times a year. That's where I found my happy place and my love and passion for woods, water, and wildlife was instilled. What we have here in Maine is so special and I think it's critical to maintain and enhance for future generations.

I see Maine Conservation Voter’s role as essential because a healthy environment is critical to Maine and its people. Protecting and enhancing it requires the combination of strong policy acumen together with political strength and know-how, and the ability to engage and activate the public. MCV is the leader in the state in this space. I know from my years of lobbying that even if you have the right policy position, if you lack political strength, it's more difficult to be successful.

There are so many moments that I have been proud of being part of MCV throughout the years. I personally think it all came together during the last gubernatorial campaign. MCV had a well-developed plan leading to the endorsement of now Governor Janet Mills and deployed a high caliber campaign strategy to support her candidacy. We maximized our role leading up to the election and took advantage of the opportunities presented during transition. Without a conservation governor and legislature, as we've seen, it's very difficult to make progress.

I'm also particularly excited about MCV's determination to advance equity, inclusion, and racial justice action in the new strategic plan."

Roger Berle: “My piece of Maine, Casco Bay, where my family heritage goes back to 1905, has been my personal paradise since I was first old enough to sense its particular ambience. For my first twenty-five years I managed to be only a “consumer” of such beauty. But then there abruptly came a turning point, when my need to become an active participant kicked in. I became so very aware from living on tiny Cliff Island that every single thing that happens environmentally on and around it, good or bad, becomes magnified and is identifiable as making a particular difference to everyone living there. Caring intensely about and for that little universe has been unavoidable for me for over half a century now.

All Mainers who care about both the health and the beauty of our State should become open to what MCV does, because I believe that only through educating the voting electorate about how critical the conservation of our environment is to both our quality of life and to our over-all economic sustainability can good outcomes result. Given inevitable human impact, our environment will not take care of itself!

My proudest moment as a Board member was partnering with Sherry Huber in our efforts to make protecting Maine’s environment a totally bipartisan concern, issue, and matter of highest importance. We had both sat at the same MCV table with Hoddy Hildreth, who, as a Republican, had been elemental in the creation and enactment of environmentally critical Clean Air and Clean Water legislation over forty years ago. It’s very tough to admit to being a Republican these days but I have a highly respectable Republican family heritage that I wish to maintain whenever it is possible. The Eisenhower years of my youth were far from perfect but there is a great deal of value to call up from those days and to begin reapplying to these days.

Nearest and dearest to my Maine heart has been and will always be enhancing others’ caring for our land and our water. Paul LePage was Governor during my first eight years on the MCV Board and his dismal dismissal of the importance of conserving our environmental assets was continually depressing for me. I can now feel good that both my personal role and my MCV role in supporting Janet Mills’ gubernatorial ascension have helped remove a major obstacle to Maine residents’ understanding that their active stewardship of our natural resources is crucial to our successful future as a state.”
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