Morganton, NC residents Kelly and Seth Collings Hawkins discovered Dogwood Alliance when they first moved to North Carolina years ago and have been avid supporters ever since.
“I learned about Dogwood when I was with the Environmental Defense Fund in Raleigh and worked on projects in the western part of the state,” says Kelly, who became a Dogwood Board member from 2005-2008.
“I like Dogwood’s approach to solving problems, the fact that they go at campaigns from multiple angles. They begin relationships with companies using an open, conciliatory approach, but if that doesn’t get results, they don’t hesitate to go a different route.”
As the founder of the Appalachian Center for Wilderness Medicine, Seth appreciates the symbiotic relationship between Dogwood’s work and his own. “Our work focuses on the delivery of healthcare in austere environments — like forests and other places where an ambulance can’t go. As a result, I have a growing appreciation for Dogwood’s work to protect those forest areas.”
Southern forests were a new discovery for this couple, who transplanted to North Carolina after graduating from Yale. Kelly is a native of Missouri, and Seth is a self-proclaimed “true Yankee” from Connecticut.
“I agreed to live in the south as long as we could have some altitude,” he says. The two have since fallen in love with the region and are happy to be raising three sons here, ages 4, 8 and 11.
While Seth serves as an emergency physician in the local hospital and medical director for the county, Kelly focuses on raising the boys and engaging with environmental groups like Dogwood as a board member and volunteer. Her favorite Dogwood “victories” have been the office supply campaign and the Georgia-Pacific agreement.
“The office supply campaign was fun and also turned out to be a defining campaign for Dogwood. It helped target the organization’s work in terms of marketplace campaigns. And as far as Georgia-Pacific goes, that’s such a large corporation and getting them to agree to higher environmental standards is a huge success.”
What would this couple like to see from Dogwood Alliance over the next 15 years? “We’d love to see Dogwood Alliance do its work so well that all companies and private landowners would be using the very best practices in terms of forest protection and conservation,” says Kelly. “That would be a great thing to celebrate.”
