Preserving Special Places Without Breaking the Bank: Wendy Ferris at TEDxShelburneFalls

"How can we afford to repair and preserve the special places and buildings that define our community character without breaking the bank?"

Wendy Ferris, Director of Community Outreach at Franklin Land Trust (Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts USA) 12 October 2012

Wendy's work is focused on assisting small towns conserve their special places and rural character. She directed the Highland Communities Initiative, an innovative program in dedicated to building capacity for conservation and community preservation in the 38 towns west of the Connecticut River Valley in Western Massachusetts USA for several years. She wrote her masters thesis on the Community Preservation Act of Massachusetts in 2002 and has been helping small towns pursue it ever since. Now at the Franklin Land Trust, Wendy is building awareness and support for the importance of land conservation in our communities.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

More TEDxShelburneFalls videos can be found at

All videos from the "A Sense of Place" conference on 12 October 2013 are at the following YouTube playlist: