STEM marks 15 years of work in Moorestown

For many South Jersey children, "snow day" means Stokes Hill in Moorestown.

"My whole life and way before, people were sledding on that hill," said Bill Archer, 65, a volunteer at the Moorestown Historical Society.

The long slope on East Main Street earned its reputation as the area's premiere sledding destination beginning in the 1880s, when Philadelphia inventor Samuel Leeds Allen perfected his Flexible Flyer there. Though the land was privately owned, families were welcome to enjoy the winter playground.

Until the 1990s. Then-owner Jeffrey Stork, formerly of Mount Laurel, decided to sell the 8.3-acre parcel for development. Townspeople were aghast. Where would they go?

The threat galvanized a local artist, elementary school students, and the town's environmental group - Save the Environment of Moorestown (STEM) - to organize Moorestown's earliest and most memorable open-space preservation campaign.

On Sunday, STEM will celebrate the 15th anniversary of the town's purchase of the property. Its annual festival at Strawbridge Lake - to take place at Haines Drive and Kings Highway - will include hikes, crafts, games, a fishing contest and animals. The rain date is Oct. 19.

In 1993, Moorestown artist Carol Marstan, who as a girl traveled from Haddonfield to sled on the hill, organized children to create "Save Stokes Hill" posters that were displayed on Main Street and at town council meetings.

Marstan raised more than $4,000 for the property's preservation by selling her own watercolors, postcards and coloring books. She will be honored and her works, as well as some by the students, will be displayed Sunday.

STEM persuaded the township to buy the land that year for $525,000 with township money, a Green Acres grant, a low-interest state loan, and private donations.

"There would have been nothing to do in this town on a snow day" without Stokes Hill, said Josh Dowiak, 21, who as a kindergartner drew a poster. "It's a real family place."

In 1994, STEM started an annual apple festival at Moorestown Community House to raise awareness that the town also was losing orchard land. The event culminated in a march down Main Street to - naturally - Stokes Hill, where a formerly injured bird nursed by a refuge was released back into the wild.

"The kids all ran down the hill behind it. It was wonderful," said Ruth Agnew, a member of the steering committee.

The festival shifted its focus to open space in 2002 to educate the public about Moorestown's growing holdings, largely the result of residents' 1998 approval of an open-space tax.

The properties are as diverse as the farmland and meadows of Swede Run Fields on Westfield Road, the old-growth beech forest of Little Woods on the Rancocas Creek, the wetlands in South Valley Woods on South Stanwick Road, and the hidden pond at the most recent acquisition, the Susan Stevens Halbe Preserve on Creek Road.

Through cooperative efforts with local, county and state governments, STEM has helped preserve more than 275 acres in Moorestown. The 300-member group aids in maintaining and monitoring seven of the properties.

Over time, a curious thing has happened to the way the preserved lands are used, members say. You might even say it's counterintuitive.

"In the beginning you could see evidence of kids in the woods - remnants of treehouses, and trails worn down," said Kay Smith, who has been with STEM since it was founded as an offshoot of the League of Women Voters in 1972.

"Now there just aren't as many kids out there," she said. "It's a lifestyle thing, or a fear of being in the woods.

"That's why it's so important to have accessible open space near neighborhoods, so people can get out there and learn."

STEM volunteers work any time they visit a site, vice president Kathy Carswell said as she aligned logs that mark a trail at Little Woods. "There's always something to do." Other members picked up litter while they hiked.

Official STEM work crews go out monthly to create trails, remove invasive species, shore up creek beds, and monitor easements. Site coordinators prioritize projects at a yearly meeting.

The U.S. Environmental Protection credits STEM with helping to stabilize Strawbridge Lake's eroded shoreline and the surrounding wetlands in 1998 and 1999.

"They work hand-in-hand with the township," said Thomas Ford, Moorestown's community development director.

For years, former STEM president Esther Yanai served on the township Planning Commission. Now STEM's Barbara Rich is a member. Other members sit on the township's Open Space and Environmental Advisory Committees.

STEM recommends acquiring land to protect ground water in the town's watersheds - Pennsauken Creek, Pompeston Creek, Swede Run and Rancocas Creek. It focuses its educational efforts on prevention of water pollution and stormwater runoff.

Some property owners ask to be listed on the group's acquisition list; others need persuasion, Rich said. STEM has its eye on about 30 parcels it would like Moorestown to buy.

Rich started in environmental activism in the 1960s by opposing a high-rise apartment on the site of Mill Creek Park in Willingboro, where she then lived.

The eight housing units proposed for Stokes Hill in 1993 posed the same kind of threat in Moorestown, she said.

"There are more people aware today, but you still have to fight the uphill battle," Rich said.

"You're always competing with developers for land," Agnew said.