Conservationist leaves $5 million to Jackson nature center

What’s happening: Residents and visitors of Jackson County will be able to enjoy the Dahlem Conservancy for generations, thanks to a monumental gift from the late Myrna Berlet, who bequeathed $5.1 million to the Jackson Community Foundation. At her request, the Community Foundation has set up the Berlet Fund for Nature to support the Dahlem Conservancy in perpetuity.

How it works: The Jackson Community Foundation received $5.18 million from Berlet’s estate, investing $5 million in an endowment that is expected to return approximately $250,000 to the Dahlem Conservancy each year, covering operating costs and more. Earlier this year, the Community Foundation gave the conservancy the remaining $180,000 while it awaits the first payout in spring 2023.

Why it’s important: The Berlet Fund for Nature is expected to provide the Dahlem Conservancy, a nonprofit-run, 300-acre nature reserve in Jackson, with $250,000 each and every year now through perpetuity. What’s more, the $5.1 million bequeathed to the Jackson Community Foundation is the largest in the organization’s history. That amount represents approximately 10 percent of the organization’s current assets, says Monica Moser, president and CEO of the Jackson Community Foundation.

“This gift is why organizations like ours exist, so people have a vehicle to do what Myrna Berlet did, to think about the communities where they lived and worked and owned small businesses and loved,” Moser says. “It improves our quality of life and meets the needs of the community.”

And Myrna herself: Myrna Berlet was a longtime resident of Jackson and lifelong conservationist — and a regular visitor of the Dahlem Conservancy-run Dahlem Center, known colloquially as Jackson’s Nature Place. She taught at Jackson Community College for 32 years and was an accomplished nature photographer, videographer, and artist. Myrna Berlet passed away in February 2021.

“It was very thoughtful in the way that she made this endowment, to make sure that it wasn’t used in one lump sum. She planned this for years,” Moser says.

“She really was an amazing lady.”