Vicki Rae Harder-Thorne stands in her family’s farm, where her conservation efforts were honored with Black Swamp Bird Observatory’s most prestigious award. (Photo by Sheri Trusty)

BY SHERI TRUSTY

OAK HARBOR – In 1883, Vicki Rae Harder-Thorne’s great-grandparents purchased 80 acres in rural Oak Harbor and started a family farm. In 1993, Vicki’s mother, the late Lois Rae Harder, place the farm in a Conservation Reserve Program with the support of Vicki’s father, Vic Harder, creating a protected oasis for local flora and fauna. In 2020, after her mother died, Vicki placed the land in the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program to further protect the land. She named it Earth Heart Farms, and today, it serves as a peaceful, natural hub of conservation education.

On Sept. 14, Vicki was presented with Black Swamp Bird Observatory’s (BSBO) most prestigious annual award in recognition of continuing her family’s conservation legacy. BSBO honored Vicki with the BSBO Conservation Service Award for Exemplary Service to the Cause of Bird Conservation during the organization’s annual Volunteer Appreciation Day which also honored several other impactful volunteers.

“It was totally a surprise,” Vicki said. “It is truly one of the greatest honors of my life. I thought of all the people doing work out there and thought, ‘Why me?’”

BSBO Executive Director Kimberly Kaufman thought, “Who else?”

“I’ve met so many inspiring conservationists from around the world, and I don’t think everyone understands what Vicki has faced. She’s faced government challenges and personal challenges,” Kaufman said. “As a new nonprofit, it can be challenging to bring volunteers and nonprofits and state and federal agencies and universities together. She did a wonderful job of bringing everyone to the table and making them feel like Earth Heart Farms is theirs.”

Kaufman not only has professional gratitude for Vicki, but she is personally thankful that Vicki continued her parents’ mission that is so closely tied to her own efforts to conserve land and protect wildlife.

“Vicki’s family and the land have been part of my life for decades. Her parents were charter members and longtime volunteers of Black Swamp Bird Observatory,” Kaufman said. “I think that she has done a wonderful job bringing her entire family on this journey as she created something that expanded and enhanced their legacy.”

Black Swamp Bird Observatory presented the Conservation Service Award for Exemplary Service to the Cause of Bird Conservation to Vicki Rae Harder-Thorne at its annual Volunteer Appreciation Day. (Photo by Sheri Trusty)

Vicki said the foundation for her work was set by her grandparents and parents, and now she is passing it on to the next generations.

“I got to sit under the cottonwood tree this summer and tell my ten-year-old grandson, Oliver, the story of my family’s wishes,” she said. “I sat under that tree with my dad when I was ten. It was a circle completed.”

After Vic and Lois Rae finalized the farm’s first transition from farmland to grassland, local organizations began asking to bring children onto the land to learn about nature.

“My parents said yes. It was always meant to be shared,” Vicki said.

Today, Earth Heart Farms partners with local organizations like the University of Toledo and NASA’s GLOBE Mission Earth to provide STEM programs for students, teachers and local organizations that work with youth. Thousands of people have been impacted by the farm.

“I really didn’t have any notion, when I chose to continue this legacy, of having STEM programs here,” Vicki said.

Vicki is looking for more organizations to engage in citizen science projects at the farm.

“We can train them,” she said. “It’s a way to learn about the land and fall in love with it on a deeper level. That’s what happened to me. The more time I spend here, the more I love it.”

Kaufman is grateful that Vicki made the choice to engage with the land as her parents and grandparents did. She has not only protected the land, but she also protected their dream of creating a farm that embraces both nature and people. For that, Vicki deeply deserved the BSBO Conservation Service Award.

“It’s one thing to steward land, but it’s another thing to steward a legacy that her mother and father created,” Kaufman said.