Every year about this time, the Waterfowl Festival, the nonprofit conservation group behind one of the Eastern Shore’s most popular events, has produced over $6 million in land protection grants over the years and also student scholarships totaling $24,000 just in 2024, sits down the Spy to provide some analysis of last year’s weekend celebration.
This year, executive director Deena Kilmon reports good news —very good, indeed, for the 53-year-old volunteer program. After a few years of mixed results and bad weather, Kilmon reports a record-breaking event with more than 17,000 people than in previous years.
Deena also makes the sobering point that the costs related to the three-day event have also increased. The expenses of infrastructure, public safety, and the need to provide reliable internet access to both visitors and vendors, as meant fees have gone up to meet those costs while also maintaining the organization’s mission to provide conservation grants and scholarships to the region’s high school students.
This video is approximately five minutes in length. For more information about the Waterfowl Festival, please go here. The organization is taking applications for scholarships now for students who volunteered for the Waterfowl Festival. call their office for details at 410-822-4567 or download the form from their website.
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