Tyler Irvine

Connect with Tyler and Fontenelle Forest at:

• LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/tyler-irvine-5115bb20/
• Website – https://fontenelleforest.org/
• Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/fontenelleforest/
• Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/fontenelleforest/

 

Tyler Irvine

Listen to the forest that grows rather than the tree that falls.

Announcer

Welcome to Agency for Change, a podcast from KidGlov that brings you the stories of changemakers who are actively working to improve our communities. In every episode, we’ll meet with people who are making a lasting impact in the places we call home.

Lisa Bowen

Hello everyone, this is Lisa Bowen, Vice President/Managing Director at KidGlov. Welcome to another episode of the Agency for Change podcast. Today we’re honored to have Tyler Irvine, the Executive Director of Fontenelle Forest, join us. With a mission to provide a sanctuary for people to connect with the natural world. Fontenelle Forest has been instrumental in preserving over 2,100 acres of forest, prairies and wetlands along the Missouri River. Today, we’ll explore Tyler’s journey, Fontenelle Forest’s impactful initiatives, and dive into the broader conversation about environmental stewardship and community engagement. Tyler, I’m eager to talk with you today and learn more about the great impact you’re making.

Tyler Irvine

Thanks so much, Lisa. It’s great to be here. I really appreciate this opportunity.

Lisa Bowen

Awesome. Well, let’s dive right into the questions. Tyler, Can you start by just giving us an overview of Fontenelle Forest and its mission?

Tyler Irvine

Yeah, so we were founded in 1913. There were some visionaries at that time who saw, with the construction of Bellevue, that the forest right here along the Missouri were at risk of being cut at the cost of forward progress for all the construction that was happening at that time. And those visionaries really saw a plan ahead and it stays true today. So over the years things have certainly developed and changed and I’m happy to go into some of my thoughts on how things have evolved over time but currently we manage 2,100 acres here, primarily in Bellevue, but also up at Neale Woods, which is northern Douglas County, southern Washington County, 24 miles of trail. You know, historically we’ve been a place for folks to come and hike and have some respite from the urban jungle, and that that remains true today.

Many of our members are hikers, many of our members are birders. We are a premier birding location, as someone who was not a bird person myself before I came to work at Fontenelle, I’ve caught the bug. It’s wonderful, it’s so much fun. That said, you know, beyond our hiking, we do outdoor education. So we have hired naturalists, qualified naturalists, who do both public as well as school-based programming, and they do a fantastic job.

Our mission is to inspire current and future generations to care for the natural world. That’s really the heart of the forest and it’s the reason why we really do exist in our current form today, with a nature center and then our other, truly our biggest piece, and what underlies all that we do is our conservation efforts. So conservation has evolved over the years. Originally the conservation ideas were kind of like leave it alone and just let it be with our landscape. That is actually not not the modern understanding of the right way to approach conservation. So we do active management: brush piling, invasive species removal and really our cornerstone in our active management is is prescribed burn, which I can go into the pieces of how that’s important in in our landscape, if you like.

Lisa Bowen

Great. You know I’ve learned a lot of new things already in the first question, Tyler, so I appreciate you sharing that. The urban jungle is definitely something that a lot of people want to escape from from time to time, so I love that you use that as a reference for why people one of the many reasons why people visit the forest. So, Tyler, can you tell us a little bit about the road that led you to personally to Fontenelle forest? Looking at your resume, you seem to have a special place in your heart for nonprofits and, you know, is the love for nature also in your blood?

Tyler Irvine

Thanks for this question. This is a very nice question. When I was growing up as a kid, my mom was a very active volunteer and I was her little buddy you know, the youngest of my of my siblings and I just went along and did stuff with my mom and she talked so highly of those days still today and she really exposed me to giving back. And from a very early age I just felt that, I believe that the world could be a better place, and that belief has carried me through my career, which really started with with nonprofits back in 2007/2008, when I started as a refugee resettlement specialist with Lutheran Family Services and a sense just carried on through. So I ran a small nonprofit out in Western Nebraska for five years. We loved Scottsbluff, we loved everything about what we were doing, but my wife and I’s family is here and, as many folks know and understand those, those roots are deep and so I had an opportunity that was an incredible opportunity to come back home and work for the Sherwood Foundation and with them I was able to invest across the state at a scale that truly I can’t even comprehend. You know the ripple effects of what the Sherwood Foundation does in Omaha but across the state is, it’s absolutely awesome and I, you know, was able to still be out there in greater Nebraska.

I love rural communities, I love the people and how things work and so, and that was lovely, but there was this gnawing thing inside of me where it was like I like to be in the arena, I like to have challenges that I can give myself to and work through and give my energy towards. And in philanthropy, there’s a bit of a feeling of sometimes you’re on the lines and your cheerleader and you believe in folks, but at the end of the day, you’re tasking other people to get this stuff done. I, as a doer, felt, while my time at at Sherwood was very meaningful, there was a bit of a part of me that didn’t feel quite fulfilled because I couldn’t give myself personally to a place and see tangible progress and improvements. And so I sat with that feeling and I hiked Neale Woods.

I was hiking Neale Woods for about six months to a year of like, hey, what do I want to do? What do I want to do? I’ve loved nature my whole life; camping, hiking, fishing, everything about it. Nature has been my church for at least since early high school. And then I realized, you know, so I’m out here at Neale Woods walking around like what do we want to do? I was like, what about Fontenelle Forest?

What if I thought about running Fontenelle Forest? And the pieces started to come together and I was just fortunate with timing and everything that the outgoing executive director was leaving. There would be an opening and I just chose to throw my hat in the ring and see what would happen. And here I am. So I’m very, very grateful for everything and to be here today.

Lisa Bowen

That’s an amazing story. What a great response. I did not anticipate that you know this was all part of your plan.

Tyler Irvine

I didn’t know it either. You know, when I was in that deliberative state of kind of thinking of leaving philanthropy and going back into running nonprofits, there was a point where I was sitting at the dinner table with my wife and I said, what about Fontenelle Forest? It was like inside of me. And then it was like a year later where I was like, no, actually, what about Fontenelle Forest? So there was a seed there and it really it encompasses my whole personality, my spiritual relationship to the land, my skill set. It’s just a perfect fit for me.

Lisa Bowen

Well, your passion for your work is evident, so it’s always wonderful to see somebody in the right position and doing the right thing for the right reasons, and you could tell you’re that person.

Tyler Irvine

Well, thank you, I appreciate that.

Lisa Bowen

Awesome. So can you tell us a little bit about like I grew up in Bellevue so I know all about Fontenelle Forest, but I know it has a place to hike. Can you tell us a little bit more about the conservation efforts happening today?

Tyler Irvine

Yeah, so we have a dedicated conservation team. We have about six dedicated biologists and conservation managers who oversee all of our 2,100 acres. Fontenelle Forest is in a transition ecosystem. So you have the Eastern deciduous forest which comes out of kind of the what do you call it? The center location is really Tennessee, Kentucky, but that forest spreads, and you know Missouri has it, and it comes right up to the edge of Fontenelle Forest. Then on the backside you now enter into the plains, which Nebraska is known for. Interestingly enough, Scottsluff, on the other end of the state, is a transition ecosystem from the plains to the Rocky Mountains, and so the species intermingle. You get Eastern and Western bluebirds, for example, co-mingling. So when I talk about transition ecosystems, you get a little bit of both.

Now, in the plains, fire is a part of how this ecosystem continues to regenerate. Unfortunately, you know, we have the big fires in the central part of the state. Down in Texas they’ve had those fires. That is a part of how this you know Nebraska as a whole, but plains in general do continue to regenerate and thrive. So we’ve got this forest that has these ridge tops and when I talk about a transition ecosystem, that ridge top is more prairie-like. It’s open, the canopy opens up and we have Bur Oak, and Bur Oaks are like the sentinel tree species, so they’re the species that goes forth into new areas. They’re the first one and they even in their leaves, for example, they have an oil that is flammable. They’re fire resistant, fire tolerant. It helps them keep their competition away. They need that open canopy to survive and thrive. So on our ridge tops, having that open canopy is critical. And then we have our Hollows, which has a whole set of tree species that thrive on shade and just the general. What folks think of as a forest. You know our hollows are, you might walk through and feel like you’re in Appalachia, for example. It’s unlike really anything else in Nebraska, so it’s very unique, you know. And we also have wetlands properties. So we’ve got these wetlands, this deciduous forest and this oak savanna, and that oak savanna is what really relies on that fire to thrive.

So go back a hundred years, 1913, trees are being cut. They want to protect this forest. The dominant idea at that time was, you know, set it and forget it, leave it be. This is God’s creation, man shouldn’t interfere in it. And that went on for about 50, 60 years, maybe even a little bit more. And what happened then? The fire went away and shade tolerant species started to compete with the oaks on our ridge tops and then the oak stopped doing as well. So the shade trees kind of come up and they start taking up that canopy space that the Bur Oak thrives on, and so our ridge tops became more forested, in the sense of that canopy coverage was thicker.

And as conservation grew to understand actually active management, that is the key. We are stewards of the land. We work in tandem with the land to ensure that it is healthy and thriving. So starting it’s been now. In the 1980s we had a legendary gentleman here named Gary Garabrant, who was our conservation guru, and he really brought in now this modern understanding of conservation, and it continues to this day now where we have a full staff.

You know we actually just burned Neale Woods 600 acres two weeks ago, right before these burn bans went into effect.

You know, folks around here know it’s been so dry and so from that aspect too there is a we don’t typically think about it this way, but there is a public safety element to it of we’ve burned out that dry fuel that, if a wildfire was to crop up, we’ve helped mitigate some of the intensity of that by doing these controlled burns where everything is generally predictable.

We have perimeters set and things are under control and our team is so professional about this. We, you know, work very closely with fire departments and neighbors around the burns themselves. There’s a lot, a lot that goes into it, but that really is kind of our keystone piece. And then throughout the year we’re continually doing invasive species removal, species that have come in and start to take over the native species in our area. And then our brush cutting is to help also facilitate fire, so that there is, as you know, if you tried to build a fire and you put too many logs on that fire, it snuffs it out. So we create the space for the fire to effectively move through by brush cutting and piling. And so if you come and you hike our trails and you see brush piles in different spots, that’s intentional, and then when we go through and burn, those piles will then, you know, burn up and all of those nutrients come back to the land.

Lisa Bowen

Wow. What our listeners won’t know is that you are just speaking off the cuff and are literally this knowledgeable, so I’m super impressed, Tyler.

Tyler Irvine

And this is not my background, truly, I have professionals who have taught me this. So this is because of the level of expertise of my staff. I’m more of a CEO type of executive director, where I oversee the bigger picture and I put people and delegate people who have that expertise, and our director of operations is such a pro at this that I’ve been so lucky to be a part of it. There’s this part of me that, like I wish, is that was kind of my job, you know, but I also I know where my strengths are and what I can give to the organization, and I’m happy to be in more of an administrative role because I do feel very passionate about what we are doing. And I got the opportunity to go out on one of our prescribed burns.

I can’t tell you, Lisa, how magical that experience is when you’re out in the land and there’s fire and smoke all around and the sun is coming down through these trees. It is very much a spiritual experience. You feel the land breathing and it is alive in a way that I’ve never really experienced before, and just the sun coming through the smoke and the trees. It’s always beautiful here, no matter what, that dappled sunlight that comes through our canopy is so healing. But when the fire was going on it was like on a whole another level. So I get very excited about it and I’m very supportive of our conservation efforts just from my personal experience with how well they do it and how neat it really is.

Lisa Bowen

So cool, and I’m sure that knowledge and your passion for the work just is making you such a better leader, so I think that’s great.

Tyler Irvine

Well, thank you.

Lisa Bowen

One thing I wanted to ask you. So not everybody is as engaged as nature as you are and knowledgeable about it. What things do you at Fontenelle Forest at Forest to engage the community in your efforts?

Tyler Irvine

Yeah, so we have a variety of public programming in that we continue to evolve, as all of us had COVID. COVID was kind of there was sort of a before and after. Previously pre-COVID days, we had a ton of school groups coming through, tons of kids and with our qualified naturalists, you know, doing really kind of high level overview of everything in nature. So to me it’s important that we provide that generalist understanding of nature instead of very specialty focus, like now there’s folks who specialize in frogs or folks who specialize in snakes or folks who specialize in raptors. Our team is more of a generalist team who can speak to how all of these elements work together in nature to help folks come to relearn, because I do believe we possess this in our DNA, but come to relearn how the forces of nature actually work and be able to read signs around you in nature that you know I think are part of our heritage as human beings. We grew up in these kinds of environments, we evolved in them, but as we’ve moved to the city, some of that knowledge has been lost, and so it’s rekindling that inherent knowledge within us to be able to read and understand the world around us. Then with that we also we have raptors. We have 26 birds of prey on our property that are all non-releasable birds that you know, we have falcons, hawks, eagles, owls. Those birds bring in a ton of folks. Our raptor education programming is very, very popular and we actually, we take calls from across the state and our team is happy to jump in the car and bring a few birds and go out to schools in St Paul, Nebraska, you know West Point, Nebraska. We’re out there trying to provide a unique and rich engaged experience for folks who might not be able to make the trip to us. And then kind of our one of our current fun little program, evolution things. So as COVID, you know, really impacted the level of school groups that have come in. We’ve switched over to more of a public program so anybody can come. You know we give discounts to our members and a lot of those programmings are like birding 101, trails less traveled, full moon hike, so we’ll have a program when we have a full moon. The forest closes at sunset so we offer this program for folks to come in at night and those are insanely popular. The forest is wild at night. Anybody who’s been in the woods at night knows it’s a whole other game, and so that’s something we love doing. Equinox celebrations, marking seasons, those are other pieces that we do. And, lastly, kind of one of our current areas that we’re looking more into is that health and wellness. So bringing yoga to the forest, Tai Chi to the forest. We had Reiki at the forest. One of our naturalists is a qualified Reiki practitioner and she had a a random fantastic program that was so well received around this health and wellness and that’s an area that I feel passionate about because of all my personal experience being in the woods and how healing it is.

In conversations with many folks, the forest has been a place of healing and in society today, we are more stressed than seems like ever. You know, we’re locked into these devices here. It’s amazing that you and I are able to talk like this through through the screen, but it does have an impact on our wellbeing. We sit in this place where society feels more divided and politics get put into everything. Everything is politicized. Here we are, we are the woods, and let’s all set those things aside and come together around our shared love of this place. And yeah, you want to talk climate change. Let’s talk about it because it is happening here. You know, all of us have experienced it, and some of the politics does start to come in but I really, I really try and separate that stuff out because truly our common ground is the love of the outdoors and the healing that this place can provide for our society.

That is the mission impact piece that why I believe Fontenelle Forest is more important now than ever before. Our kids need it, all of us, we all need to reconnect to this creation that we find ourselves in and instead of, oh, let’s take a week trip out to Colorado and go see these awesome mountains, well, you can come down here and hike for four hours and get lost and go back home. It doesn’t have to be a whole, hey, we got to go find this somewhere else. We are here, we’re here for it and it’s right in your backyard.

Lisa Bowen

Yes, the more you talk about how important the work is that you’re doing at Fontenelle Forest, the bigger your job gets. What are some of the challenges that come along with leading an organization that has such a significant impact on the community?

Tyler Irvine

You know there are many. Really, at the end of the day there can be competing interests. So, from a recreation aspect wanting to keep trails open and available well, from a conservation aspect, we’re doing a prescribed burn. We have to close down trails to do so for folks’ safety. Folks who are here to come and hike might be upset by that, and so there’s tension in between and sometimes you just have to get everybody back to the same page of why we’re doing what we do and help folks to see the bigger picture outside of their specific interest in engaging with the forest. Because we have a variety of stakeholders, you know. We have our birding population. They want things a certain way. We have our outdoor educators. They want things a certain way. We have our conservation team. They might say I wish nobody was here you know, and they don’t, mind you.

But I think working through the variety of interests, compromising as folks know, in this world politics is a lot of compromise. You just it’s a give and take, so long as the mission is never sacrificed. And I think that’s my, that’s mine is to ensure that everything we do is aligned with our mission, and if it’s not, we have a problem that we need to talk about or reassess potentially our mission or whatever it is that’s running up against it. And then you know we have 2,100 acres that we manage. We have a nature center, we have 37 staff, making payroll is always, you know we’re in a great financial position, but those are certainly things that you know, we want to make sure we can continue to sustain our team, our nature center, our you know the acres that we restore, because it costs money for all of that and how do we build a model that is balanced in terms of grant revenue, earned revenue.

One of the things that made me so excited about the force is we are blessed to have a membership based model so that we are able to have significant earned revenue that comes in, you know, and we have folks who they come in and they think maybe we’re a state park or something and why are you charging this money? We are not a state park. We are a 501C3 nonprofit organization that receives no state tax assistance, so we rely on our membership to fund our conservation work, for example. You know that is the why of it, and sometimes folks would come in and be like well, it’s awfully expensive to breathe the air here, ha ha. And it’s like we take that step back and say this is what it takes to breathe that air, and you know it’s a process for folks.

And again, people have their own experience and that’s very valid. When you sit in a seat like mine, you see the variety of experiences and those aren’t always in total agreement with one another. You have to work to communicate the why and what we are offering. You know, as it relates to a question like well, it’s awfully expensive to breathe your air. What we are providing for the, for our members, in terms of the value. We have the programming aspects. We have the unparalleled nature that we provide that’s maintained to an excellent quality. And we have exhibits. We have an art exhibit that’s on our trading post history. I could go on and on, Lisa, about the history of this place. We have 74 earth lodge sites within Fontenelle’s property and those date back to 1200 to 1400 so there’s significant archeological importance to our area. From a species perspective, we get birds that no one else gets. It’s why we are a premier national birding location. So again, these are the things that your membership helps us continue to sustain.

Lisa Bowen

Yes, I agree. So you perfectly led into my next question, which is about membership. I know one of your goals is to grow your membership in order to support your efforts. Can you talk a little bit about what a membership might cost and what that includes? You mentioned some of those things, but what are the benefits?

Tyler Irvine

Yeah. So our membership for a family and this is good for a whole year is $80. Then we have a. We have some different tiers, so we have like a membership plus one where you can bring in someone with you every time. That’s $70 a year. And then we have an individual membership which is $55 a year and we just rolled out price increases this past January We haven’t done that for the previous six years, really trying to get more in line with with our peers and value ourselves accordingly.

Historically we’ve sort of undersold, I think, what what we can actually provide. During COVID we were blessed being a nature center with ample outdoor opportunities. We actually experienced a growth in membership during that time. So part of what we’re trying and then it’s since has kind of dropped back down as folks have gone back into, you know they’re more regular life, whatever that might mean these days, and so for us it’s reengaging folks who have potentially lapsed as memberships. You, Lisa as you know, being a Bellevue native, so many folks have history here. Either they camped here as a kid or they sent their kids here for camp and then, as life goes on, folks kind of, you know, kids grow up or whatever all the things happen, some of those folks just kind of forget or stop coming down, and so it’s reengaging with, with folks across our lifespan that, hey, we are still here. We value the membership that you know our community gives to us graciously. With that value, you know we have a an early childhood space in our basement so for families to bring their kids in, come downstairs and just free, roam, explore, have a look, it’s, it’s fantastic. Then we have our art gallery space which currently houses our trading post exhibit. So for folks who are interested, and in the history of Bellevue, Sarpy County, Fontenelle Forest, that’s our current exhibit and well, you know, over time, well put in new stuff there. And then something we’re extremely excited about coming here this year will be our acorn acres, which is a half acre outdoor playscape that will have a very cool custom two-story treehouse and a variety of interactive ways for folks who are maybe on the newer side to the outdoors to get familiar with how it is to explore. And you know we will be thoughtful with our signage so that it feels like a trail you know for to again it comes back to we want to increase people’s confidence in being able to go out and explore and discover new things and find their way. So this whole area, designed with that in mind and that’s gonna be a huge draw for us.

We have a mile-long boardwalk, you know, for folks who have accessibility issues or kids, you know, we got a mile-long boardwalk where you can view all these amazing birds. You know, I was talking with the guy this morning who was walking the boardwalk and he went a little bit further down some other trails. He saw 35 deer today,  turkeys, coyotes, so the wildlife. It’s in an accessible way. And then it leads you out over to overlook the Missouri River.

You see downtown Omaha, you see the Desert Dome and Henry Dorley Zoo. It’s just a, it’s a reminder of where we are in the community that exists along this Missouri River Corridor. And then, you know, with your membership, you get access to these programs at reduced prices, access to discounts in our gift shop. Our gift shop does amazing, plus just the community being a part of a place that is really actively conserving precious land. You know, we feel that that is, that is an important thing.

But let’s say, if you’re just a hiker, we have the best hiking around, you know, yes, you can go over to Hitchcock Nature Center north of Crescent Iowa. That’s a longer drive. They’ve got good hiking too I’m not gonna say they don’t, but we have more of it right here and so I think that there’s something for everybody here, no matter the age, no matter the experience level, and with the most meaningful aspect to me at the end of the day are the people and the relationships we have folks who come here and walk that boardwalk every single day. I’ve had folks come and tell me I’m alive because of Fontenelle forest, and I believe it because it it does it. It’s that connection and physical activity and wellness of being outdoors that sustains us through dark times in our lives and we all have those and for folks who are needing to find some comfort and healing in their lives, I believe the forest is here for you.

Lisa Bowen

Wow, I think your rates are very reasonable and I gladly pay that much to breathe your air and see your beautiful land. So I think you just got yourself a new member.

Tyler Irvine

Awesome. Thank you. Well, let me know when you come down, we’ll take a walk.

Lisa Bowen

I will. So what other ways can people support your efforts in addition to becoming a member? Do you rely heavily on volunteers? I know donations, you’re a nonprofit. What ways can people help?

Tyler Irvine

Volunteer. So we’ve got a fantastic professional staff, but we rely on volunteers to scale our impact. So we have volunteers and land stewardship. Those are conservation efforts. We have a Tuesday and Thursday team. That’s every Tuesday and Thursday. So for those folks who maybe are, you know, recently retired or have some more time to give you, you get to get dirty with our team and actually be, you know from my see your, your unpaid staff and you have all those same rights and responsibilities accordingly. Then we have our monthly Saturday work days. So for folks who, just you know, want to be able to have a consistent engagement but maybe don’t have, you know, if you work a nine to five every, you know, Monday through Friday or whatever, we have a Saturday morning option once a month. Now we’re also in the process of re-vamping our whole volunteer effort. So if that is something that you are interested in, we’re gonna have some new things rolling out on our website where you’ll see all of our volunteer opportunities, because there are many. We have them in in the education space, we have them in the raptor space, we have them in terms of special events.

You know, we event coordination, those kinds of things that,  I know that there’s event planners out there in the world who are the precious folks that like we all need, and those folks who have those kinds of skill sets are absolutely we love that and we need that. We appreciate those kinds of help. You know, then we have some even back-end volunteers. So for folks who just want to, maybe they have some mobility issues or something along those lines or they can’t necessarily meet the physical requirements of some of the the work that we do will have them help us, you know, clean out our databases, do some mailers, you know some of the office work, and we have dedicated folks who who show up and do that monthly with us as well.

And that’s a huge lift for us, because sometimes those are the things for us who are kind of at our max capacity, it will be great if we could just do this. We have a lot of those things on our, on our desk that if we found the right volunteer now we could actually like we can do that. We can start just rolling and feeling really, really good about all of our progress. So we have over 300 active volunteers on an annual basis, just to give you an idea of this scale. Volunteers our our lifeblood, you know, and they’re the ones who champion us out in the community. And one of the most meaningful days I’ve had here was a a volunteer appreciation breakfast where I got to sit back and see staff who work with volunteers on a regular basis prepare breakfast for them, give them gifts and see the volunteers shower that love right back on the staff and say, hey, you’re the reason why we keep showing up here. That, to me, is what it’s all about.

Lisa Bowen

That’s amazing. So you mentioned your website. Is that the best way for our listeners who want to learn more about you to reach out? Yes, can you tell us where your website, what your URL is?

Tyler Irvine

Yeah, fontenelleforest.org, I think are we .org. You know, Lisa, I’ve only been here five months.

Lisa Bowen

You would not know that by listening to you today, Tyler.

Tyler Irvine

Yep, fontenelleforest.org. I just want to plug something on that website, you’ll see on the top on Nature Search. This is a volunteer effort from some of our longstanding folks where we now have just rolled out a new Nature Search platform where it’s kind of like a crowdsource. You take pictures of what you see here at the forest. Now we’ve got the whole taxonomy of plants, animals, fungi. All of that is there, with pictures from folks who upload them and locations for other folks that they want to go try and find things. So that’s a cool new thing that I just wanted to talk about.

Lisa Bowen

Well, Tyler, we love quotes here at KidGlov and I’m sure you have a few that inspire you in your daily routine. Do you have any favorite quotes you can share with us today?

Tyler Irvine

I have many. I guess one that it doesn’t necessarily provide answers but provokes thinking and it dovetails nicely into our conversation today is listen to the forest that grows rather than the tree that falls.

Lisa Bowen

I love that, love that. So, Tyler, as we wrap up here today, you’ve shared so much wonderful information. What’s the one thing you would want our listeners to remember about Fontenelle Forest as we close our conversation today?

Tyler Irvine

Again. if you are in a place where you feel you need some comfort and healing in your life, we welcome you here. The sunlight through the trees will provide many blessings for you, and so if you feel trapped, if you feel like the world is too technological, or if you feel like you just need space to think and breathe and move, we are here and we welcome everyone.

Lisa Bowen

That’s wonderful. Well, thank you so much for sharing your time with us today and all of your knowledge and giving us a sneak peek at all of the great things that Fontenelle Forest does.

Tyler Irvine

It’s my pleasure. Thank you so much, and thanks to everybody who’s listening to me ramble a little bit today.

Lisa Bowen

Thank you, Tyler.

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