Donor Spotlight

Not All Heroes Wear Capes

From removing invasive species to serving as naturalists, Legacy Club members and TNC volunteers Dale and Lois Derouin give their all to support nature.

Oregon residents Dale and Lois Derouin often sport accessories like baseball caps, hiking shoes and work gloves—but perhaps they should add capes to their wardrobes. They are volunteer superheroes who have done it all in the name of conservation.

Avid hikers and backpackers, the Derouins first learned about The Nature Conservancy in the early 1980s while exploring TNC’s Cascade Head Preserve—a coastal prairie surrounded by temperate rainforest on the Oregon coast. They had recently relocated from their home state of Wisconsin after falling in love with the Northwest’s natural beauty, and decided to start helping out after seeing the preserve’s rare wildflowers and remarkable views. As Dale says, “If you want to have nice things, then you have to take care of those nice things and treat them with respect. So, we do a little bit.”

Four decades later, the impact of the Derouins’ contributions to conservation and their community have been immeasurable, earning them the well-deserved honor of being named Volunteers of the Year for TNC in Oregon. Dale and Lois serve as naturalists at Cascade Head, sharing their extensive knowledge with visitors from around the world and leading guided hikes for school groups. They fight invasive species, such as Himalayan blackberries and Scotch thistle, at TNC preserves across the state. Plant monitoring, sustainable public-use advocacy and fence removal are just a few more of the accomplishments found on their résumés. They even donate their time to other organizations: shelving books at their local library, leading gardening programs at a native plant arboretum and packing up boxes to distribute at the neighborhood food bank.

Over the years, they have also found many ways to support TNC’s work financially. “I like the way TNC works with other groups,” says Dale. “They don’t want to do everything for everybody, but they inspire other people to do things for themselves.”

In addition to making planned gifts, such as charitable gift annuities, the Derouins included TNC in their will to help protect nature for future generations. “We have grandchildren,” says Lois. “They’re really young yet, just 9 and 11, but they hike a lot and have seen a lot of wildlife. I hope they’ll be able to go to some of the places that we’ve been and that those places haven’t completely vanished.”

Thanks to the contributions of passionate volunteers like Dale and Lois, there is hope that many of those special places will remain that way for future generations.