Natural Lands is launching the Save Crebilly Campaign — a final step in the organization’s multi-year fundraising effort to preserve the entirety of Crebilly Farm in Westtown Township.
The campaign — which has a $2.5 million goal, dollar-for-dollar challenge, and an Oct. 31, 2024, deadline — targets communities within a 10-mile radius of Crebilly, which will benefit most from the protected and publicly accessible open space.
Crebilly Farm is a 308-acre ecologically, historically, and culturally significant landscape that has long been a priority for conservation. At one point, the property was under an agreement of sale with Toll Brothers to construct more than 300 houses. But, following years of community concern, the deal with the developers came to an end and the Robinson family, which has owned and occupied Crebilly Farm for multiple generations, opened a pathway and partnership to conservation.
In June 2023, Natural Lands and partners celebrated an important milestone when one-third of the property was permanently protected through conservation easements.
The final step in preserving Crebilly Farm is Westtown Township’s purchase of the remaining 206 acres which will become a passive-use park with walking trails through the stunning landscape.
To date, more than $20 million has been committed, thanks to revenues from a newly enacted Westtown Township open space tax; county, state, and federal grants; and private donations. Additionally, Mt. Cuba Center and an anonymous donor have created a $2 million challenge that will match all final phase fundraising gifts dollar-for-dollar.
“Now is the time to come together—friend by friend, neighbor by neighbor, and gift by gift — to raise the final $2.5 million, unlock our generous $2 million challenge, and reach the goal of saving all of Crebilly Farm,” said Oliver Bass, president of Natural Lands. “It’s a chance of a lifetime.”
Natural Lands has set up a web page to receive donations: www.natlands.org/crebillyfarm. The fundraising deadline is Oct. 31.
Township Supervisor Dick Pomerantz said, “The ultimate success of this final phase to save Crebilly will be the culmination of what has been a truly extraordinary undertaking thus far. Saving Crebilly’s magnificent open space today will benefit the many generations to come.”
