The South Hampton Roads Resource Conservation & Development Council joins the 375 RC&D Councils across the country in celebrating RC&D Week Sept. 21-27.

RC&D week was declared in recognition of the anniversary of the designation of the first 10 RC&D areas. In the past 45 years the program has grown from 10 designated areas to 375 designated areas that cover more than 85 percent of the United States and its territories.

Judy Lyttle, Chairman of the South Hampton Roads RC&D Council, said, “The Council is proud to celebrate National RC&D Week and the community service that we have provided to our project region.”

South Hampton Roads RC&D Council has been involved in several projects to address community issues.

The Council leads efforts to establish community gardens in the City of Portsmouth and the City of Suffolk, for mental health and substance abuse consumers through grant funding provided by The Norfolk Foundation. The organization has worked to assist Norfolk Public Schools with the engineering design and permits for the Camp Young Living Shoreline Restoration project on the Elizabeth River in Chesapeake. The most recent accomplishment is developing a partnership with the VA DEQ and Louis Berger Inc. to implement a TMDL bacterial study on the Elizabeth River.

Resource Conservation and Development Councils are made up of volunteers who serve their communities in all 50 states and US territories. RC&D Councils identify, address and solve the challenges needed to sustain and improve the quality of life in their own communities.

South Hampton Roads RC&D is a local nonprofit corporation. The members of the corporation include five cities, two counties, two Soil and Water Conservation Districts and one Planning District Commission.

Members include the counties of Isle of Wight and Surry; cities of Chesapeake, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk and Virginia Beach; Peanut and Virginia Dare SWCD’s; and the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission. Other partnering agencies include the USDA-Natural Resource Conservation Service, Virginia Cooperative Extension and the Virginia Department of Forestry.

For more information, call 547-7172, extension 3, or visit www.varcd.org.