The Howard County Legacy Leadership Institute for the Environment offers small classes that meet outdoors, at NASA and at Belmont Manor. Its graduates, known as “Hollies,” go on to volunteer for many local and national environmental groups. Photo by Wanda Prather

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Woody Merkel, 69, a lifelong resident of Woodstock, Maryland, says much of his early life was spent outdoors. Appreciation of nature, he said, is “part of my genes.” 

So, a decade ago, Merkel, a retired personnel manager in the Maryland state government, signed up for classes at the Howard County Legacy Leadership Institute for the Environment, or HoLLIE. The nonprofit organization began in 2008 under the leadership of University of Maryland professor Tracey Manning.

Its annual eight-week course includes lectures about climate change and other global environmental issues as well as about more local topics, such as the Chesapeake Bay and Patuxent River. 

Experts from NASA, NOAA, the University of Maryland and other schools and agencies meet with students, most of whom are retirees, at NASA’s Goddard Space Center in Greenbelt and Belmont Manor in Elkridge.

The program inspired Merkel to dedicate his retirement to working to “connect people with nature,” he said.

He’s now a volunteer at the Howard County Conservancy, which educates children and adults about responsible stewardship of our environment. 

“It is so very important now for children and adults to know what nature is all about, so they will help protect and preserve it,” Merkel said.

From waterman to steward

Another local environmentalist is Alan Pflugrad, a 72-year-old Columbia resident and first-year HoLLIE graduate from 2009. He has devoted his volunteer years to help clean up Howard County watersheds and the Chesapeake Bay — a “huge task,” he noted.  

A “onetime boater and crabber,” Pflugrad volunteers at the Maryland Department of the Environment Watershed Program, leading teams collecting data on chemicals, pollution and cleanups of the area’s waterways.

“Most of the streams in Howard County are rated ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’ biologically,” Pflugrad said. “That means they are harboring less and less life. We can no longer eat fish and crabs from the area.”  

Pflugrad, a master watershed steward, hopes his work can help bring the area’s waterways and their inhabitants back to health.

Virtual Earth Day

On April 22, most of the world’s celebrations of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day will be postponed due to the coronavirus. 

But Laurel resident Liz Feighner, 62, a 2012 HoLLIE graduate, is working with other county environmentalists to plan online events. Earth Day will be celebrated via virtual events, she said.

Feighner said her HoLLIE classes inspired her to join four other women who in 2018 blocked the front doors of the Maryland State House in Annapolis to protest possible construction of a gas pipeline and drilling under the Potomac River. Police handcuffed them, removed them from the property and charged them with trespassing. Since then, others have demonstrated and worked against the pipeline, which so far has not been approved.

“Here’s what keeps me awake at night: wondering what the world will look like when my children and my grandchildren reach my age,” said Feighner, mother of four and grandmother of two, in an interview with the Washington Post in 2018. 

Those concerns “are stronger than ever,” she told the Beacon this month.

Repair and reuse 

Of course, you don’t have to risk arrest to help the environment. For the past three years, Charlie Goedeke, a 2012 HoLLIE classmate of Feighner, has been running the Repair Café for Transition Howard County. The volunteer organization is part of an international movement that focuses on building better communities.

“We encourage people — instead of throwing away and buying new, fix what you got,” Goedeke said. “That way you save money and keep more things from overflowing landfills.”

Goedeke, 69, leads a team of 15 to 20 “fixers” on monthly visits to 50+ centers, libraries, churches and other county venues to show attendees how to fix their vacuum cleaners, bikes and CD and record players. They also teach people how to maintain their tools, sharpen their kitchen knives and repair electrical appliances. 

The coronavirus has temporarily put Repair Café visits on hold, but they will resume eventually, Goedeke said.

“If you ask people to fix the world, most will they say they don’t have the time,” he said. “But if you show them how to repair one item at a time, they feel more comfortable with the idea.” 

Making a difference

HoLLIE is now being run by six Howard County women: Cathy Hudson, a farmer who owns the Myrtle Woods Farm in Elkridge; Tracey Manning, Ph.D., co-founder of the group and a psychologist who teaches at the University of Maryland; Wanda Prather, an internet technology consultant; co-founder Barbara Schmeckpeper, a geneticist and environmental educator; Betsy Singer, a former communications director at the National Institutes of Health; and Audrey Suhr, a former director at the National Aquarium in Baltimore.

“The program has exceeded my wildest dreams,” Manning said. “I’m incredibly impressed on the impact we’ve had on people’s knowledge and commitment to start a whole new career in environmental volunteering,” she said. “The HoLLIE program helps people focus on what they’re passionate about.”

HoLLIE’s leadership training classes, which are limited to 15 students for greater student-instructor interaction, typically take place on eight consecutive Thursdays in February and March each year. Tuition is $100. 

Registration typically opens in mid-November and fills quickly. If you’d like to receive online registration information when it becomes available, email hocollie@gmail.com. For more information, visit howardLLIE.com.