Sign up to receive emails with ideas for getting active outside and healthy eating on the go!
About
The Grassland Heritage Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving prairies in Northeast Kansas through education, stewardship, and land protection.
Founded in 1975, GHF's early projects included the Konza Fence Project, a traveling trunk for the Kansas State Historical Society, and native landscaping at Kansas City International Airport. In the 1980's GHF acquired title to The Prairie Center in Olathe, Kansas, a 300-acre park containing 45 acres of virgin prairie. GHF began a campaign to insure permanent protection of The Prairie Center for public recreation and natural heritage education. Through a partnership with The Nature Conservancy, the property was conveyed to the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks (KDWP) in 1990. GHF continues to maintain a presence at The Prairie Center by retaining and managing the 2.6-acre Roulund-Wagner Prairie contiguous to the state property.
In addition to the Roulund-Wagner Prairie, GHF owns and manages the 144-acre Rachel Snyder Prairie outside of Mayetta, Kansas. Snyder Prairie is open to the public during GHF sponsored prairie walks and educational events. Management efforts at Snyder Prairie are overseen by the GHF Preserve manager and the Groundhogs, an all-volunteer maintenance crew.
In addition to managing its two prairies, GHF currently provides educational activities in northeast Kansas including school-based and family education events, prairie walks, lectures, social events, and publication of the GHF Newsletter. GHF also awards the annual Rachel Snyder Memorial Scholarship which provides funding for graduate and undergraduate students at Kansas universities conducting research on prairie ecology, conservation, and/or Monarch butterflies and other pollinators native to Kansas.