We are so pleased to recognize these individuals and organizations who are doing extraordinary conservation work in their communities:
Betty Bradshaw Golden Acorn Award: Maura Neuffer
This year’s Betty Bradshaw Golden Acorn Award has been given to Maura Neuffer, who has spent her career as a dedicated educator. Maura began her career as a special education teacher. But as her interest in the natural world grew, she became a Naturalist Guide at The Morton Arboretum, Education Manager at Hawthorne Hill Nature Center, and, for the last 14 years, she has been a cherished Environmental Educator at The Conservation Foundation. Maura brings so much knowledge and valuable expertise to our education team through her willingness to share and collaborate. Always curious and a lifelong learner, she has recently expanded her expertise to become a Certified Interpretive Guide and Certified Forest Therapy Guide.
Maura is passionate about connecting children with nature in engaging and creative ways that inspire them to wonder and care about the natural world around them. She genuinely desires to build strong and meaningful relationships with the students and teachers we partner with. Maura is empathetic and inclusive, making sure all children have opportunities to be fully immersed in the activity being offered. Through her authentic enthusiasm, sense of fun, and musical abilities Maura has a special way of making their experiences memorable and impactful.
The integrity of The Conservation Foundation’s youth education programs are built on Maura’s expertise and many of her creative ideas. Maura, we are so proud of you! Congratulations on your Golden Acorn Award! And thank you to River Mixer for generously donating the cost of this year’s Golden Acorn Award and supporting our celebration of conservation leadership.
Salt Smart Community Award: The City of Evanston
The Conservation Foundation’s Salt Smart Award is awarded to a community or organization that has shown themselves to be local leaders in reducing the amount of road salt used while maintaining winter safety. No one has done this better than the City of Evanston, our 2026 Salt Smart Award winner! They have shown incredible innovation in their adoption of Salt Smart Practices, and have a sincere desire to share this knowledge with other communities, for whom they are an exemplary role model.
The City of Evanston continually finds ways to reduce their salt use out of concern for the environment while still providing safe surfaces, pushing the envelope on using liquid deicers, and emphasizing decision making based on weather and pavement conditions. “Their efforts to reduce salt use and their winter operations innovations are really impressive,” said Hanna Miller, Watershed Project Manager at The Conservation Foundation.
Director of Public Works Edgar Cano and his staff at the City of Evanston are always willing to share knowledge with other communities to help them adopt winter best practices. “When another municipality has questions on the best practices, Evanston is one of the first places I connect them to because of Edgar’s willingness to share his experiences,” Hanna shared. But they are also always looking to see what they can learn from other communities, and that type of collaborative spirit is how great change is accomplished.
“It is such an incredible honor to be the recipient of the 2026 Salt Smart Community Award. Awards like this reflect the dedication of our hardworking staff and the city’s commitment to protecting our waterways and continuously improving operations to lessen negative environmental impacts,” Edgar reflected. “Our partnership with The Conservation Foundation and the Chicago Area Waterways Chloride Workgroup has been invaluable. Together, we are turning ideas into reality, dreams into practice, and shared values into real, measurable environmental impacts for our communities and future generations.”
Our sincere thanks to Edgar and his staff for their enthusiastic adoption of Salt Smart practices, and congratulations!
Conservation@Home Award: Joe and Sue LeCroy
The recipients of the 2026 Conservation@Home Award, Joe & Sue LeCroy, didn’t stop with just the home; they’ve brought conservation and the fight to protect our imperiled monarchs to the screens of more than 75,000 people through the Saving Monarchs Facebook page they established in 2015.
Their conservation journey began in 2004, after a frightening near-death experience for Joe. Returning home to recover, he had a fresh perspective and knew he wanted to enjoy life and the world around him more. He and Sue started transforming their yard, first with a small pond, then with some milkweed and other native plants to provide habitat and attract interesting wildlife. Joe remembers feeling rather overwhelmed when staff of The Conservation Foundation did their first Conservation@Home yard visit. They received their Conservation@Home certification back then, and have continued to expand their native plantings ever since, to the point where the only grass they have is in the pathways between their four different rain gardens, bioswales, and other native plantings. Joe and Sue welcome conservation and gardening enthusiasts to their yard every year now for garden tours, including The Conservation Foundation’s DuPage Garden Showcase. They’ve become an integral part of our local conservation community, serving on the boards of DuPage Wild Ones and the DuPage Organic Garden Club.
And they have shared the knowledge they have gained with so many thousands of people through the Saving Monarchs Facebook page, which has grown to more than 70,000 followers! “Joe and Sue LeCroy are outspoken pollinator advocates both in our local community and online with their Saving Monarchs Facebook community,” said Beth Peluse, Conservation@Home Program Manager. “They host an annual Pollinator Party at their home in Lombard to showcase their impressive pollinator oasis which draws a good crowd plus local organizations who table at the event. They provide presentations about how they created their rain and pollinator gardens at their home as well as other pollinator topics. They also own a sign business and sell fun, nature-focused garden signs at local events. They have been incredible ambassadors for The Conservation Foundation, sharing our content with their followers, attending many of our events, and serving on the committee that was instrumental in passing the DuPage Forest Preserve referendum last year.”
Conservation is now a huge part of Joe, Sue, and their daughter Becky’s lives. Becky is 17 now, so she has grown up with an environmental awareness. “We never did any of this for recognition,” Joe shared. “Our main reason in gardening for wildlife is our love of the environment, and our care about the wildlife that is struggling. That’s why The Conservation Foundation means so much to us. We’ve met so many wonderful people over the last 20 years. I wish we’d done it sooner! I’m just so thankful.”
And we are all thankful for you, Joe and Sue! Congratulations on your 2026 Conservation@Home Award!
Conservation Partner Award: Fox Valley Park District
The Conservation Foundation has been partnering with the Fox Valley Park District, this year’s Conservation Partner of the Year, since 2007 when then-Executive Director Steve Messerli asked for our help with an upcoming referendum. The park district had sketched out what they wanted to ask their voters for, and we ran some polling. Their voters were not in favor of some aspects of their proposed referendum, and we coached them on what to change to get a successful outcome. That was the first of many collaborations between The Conservation Foundation and the Fox Valley Park District.
Since that time, we have helped them purchase 22 different properties for their park district, ranging from 0.2 to nearly 20 acres in size. Many of these properties were in crowded residential areas and helped expand small local parks. A few others established brand new parks in areas that did not yet have one. Smart urban planning principles guided many of the acquisitions; Fox Valley Park District acted in concert and cooperation with their municipalities to bring green space to more people in their district, doing their part to relieve stress and promote healthy lifestyles for their constituents.
This partnership has meant a great deal to us, not only because of the shared work we’ve accomplished, but because of the shared values that guide it. Conservation is at its best when it brings communities together around a common purpose, and the foundation has helped us turn vision into meaningful, lasting impact for the residents we serve.
Most recently, the Foundation stepped in to help the Fox Valley Park District secure two significant parcels on the east side of the Fox River within the Village of North Aurora. These properties represent more than land acquisition, they create new opportunities to preserve open space, restore natural areas, expand access to the river and regional bike path, and provide places where families can make memories while learning to appreciate and observe nature. That kind of long-term impact is only possible through strong partnerships like ours.
“We have worked with Jeff Palmquist at Fox Valley Park District this entire time, and we have been honored to help him and Fox Valley Park District make a difference in the Aurora, North Aurora and Montgomery communities,” said Dan Lobbes, Director of Land Preservation at The Conservation Foundation. “Jeff has always been adept at knowing what residents needed, where the opportunities were, what the Fox Valley Park District board would support, and finding the intersection between those three factors to accomplish an impressive list of community-improving projects.”
Upon learning that the Fox Valley Park District was chosen as our 2026 Conservation Partner of the Year, Jeff himself said, “I want to thank The Conservation Foundation for this great news and their outstanding support. I can’t think of a better partner.”
We look forward to more impactful collaborations in the future with our Conservation Partner of the Year!
Paul Butler Memorial Award: Marta Keane
Marta Keane, this year’s Paul Butler Memorial Award winner, has been a force and pioneer in the world of recycling for nearly four decades. In her last 20 years working with Will County, she has come to be one of the state’s top experts in recycling and household hazardous waste diversion, which keeps our precious waterways and lands cleaner. Marta previously worked for the City of Naperville as their Environmental Programs Administrator; she was the catalyst in growing the city’s household hazardous waste collection program, which laid the groundwork for the Naperville site being the busiest household hazardous waste collection site in the country.
Across multiple decades, Marta has been a tireless advocate for various state-level waste reduction-related legislation. She has also served in leadership positions at the Illinois Recycling Foundation, the Illinois Product Stewardship Council, and the National Recycling Coalition. Last year in recognition of this service, Marta received the Steve Apotheker Recycler of the Year Award from the Illinois Recycling Foundation.
Additionally impressive is all of the important behind the scenes and less flashy work that Marta does, from the frequent recycling presentations she delivers, her work acting as a liaison between businesses and recycling facilities, her conversations with leaders to gain waste diversion buy-in, to always answering the litany of recycling questions that she receives on a daily basis with a smile and enthusiasm.
Congratulations, Marta!
Tom Weisner Memorial Award: Mavis Bates
In 2010, Mavis Bates of Aurora founded the Aurora Greenfest, a community gathering celebrating ecology, farming, conservation, and all things “green.” The hope of the free, all-are-welcome Greenfest was to involve everyone in the Fox Valley in sustainability, resilience, and how we can all walk more gently on our planet, which it has certainly done for its thousands of annual visitors since then! Recognizing our common goals, Mavis asked The Conservation Foundation to be part of the event and the Aurora GreenLights organization as a fiscal agent, and we have always been in awe of the energy that Mavis never seems to run short on, and her ability to draw people to the environmental cause she is so passionate about. These efforts have led Mavis Bates to be named as the recipient of The Conservation Foundation’s Tom Weisner Memorial Award for 2026.
In addition to Aurora GreenLights and the GreenFest event, Mavis has been active in the Fox Valley Sierra Club chapter, has done restoration work in Kane County forest preserves like Bliss Woods, and, in 2020, she was elected to the Kane County Board. “Mavis has taken her passionate environmental advocacy to her elected position,” said our President/CEO Brook McDonald. “And we are so grateful for her partnership and all she has done to help her community and educate her fellow residents and constituents on conservation issues.”
Upon learning of her award, Mavis said, “I am absolutely thrilled and grateful and honored to be chosen for this award! I never thought I would win an award for anything! I just keep trying to fight climate change to protect the work that other people do so well — the protection and restoration of our natural areas. I want to be the umbrella that helps the conservation work continue, by promoting clean energy, electric vehicles, recycling, and solar energy. Winning this award helps me to keep working to make the world a better place for future generations and to set new goals for myself as a correspondent for fighting climate change.”
Mavis would like to make sure everyone knows that Aurora GreenFest is back this year on May 2nd at the Old Post Office in Aurora, May 2nd at 18 West Benton Street. Parents, bring your kids. Kids, bring your parents, to the longest running ecofest in Illinois!
The Tom Weisner Memorial Award is given to those exhibiting exemplary environmental leadership as a local elected official. Tom served as the mayor of Aurora, the city Mavis has given so much of her heart to, and we are so pleased to recognize her efforts through this award!
Get your tickets to join us at our Membership & Awards Luncheon on Thursday, February 19th at the Chicago Marriott Naperville to see all our amazing award winners receive their awards!