At the 12th Annual Reshaping Rochester Awards Ceremony, the Community Design Center of Rochester honored Gay Mills with the Activism Award. Gay has served as Executive Director of Genesee Land Trust for almost 25 years, and the award recognizes the tremendous impact she and the land trust have had on the region.
Please join us in celebrating Gay’s incredible tenure.
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Here’s the award submission for Gay’s nomination:
Incorporating public access to natural and open spaces is a critical, but often overlooked element of the built environment. Our Nominee, Gay Mills, Executive Director of Genesee Land Trust, Inc. (until her announced February 2023 retirement), has worked tirelessly with local partners to protect, in perpetuity, over 6,500 acres of land in a 7-county area and to establish numerous urban initiatives. Gay has provided over three decades of sustained passion, advocacy in support of diverse and successful projects, and fostering of community partnerships all for the long-term betterment of the wider Rochester area.
Under Gay’s leadership, 18 nature preserves are now owned and managed by Genesee Land Trust, Inc. Municipal partnership projects (Corbett’s Glen Nature Park [Brighton], Gosnell Big Woods Preserve [Webster], and Lehigh Crossing Park [Victor] spurred each of these towns to preserve additional local open spaces (e.g., Brickyard Trail [Brighton] and Vosburg Hollow and Four Mile Creek [Webster]). With Cornwall, Macyville Woods and Salmon Creek Nature Preserves there has been a focus on improving access for people of different abilities and ages, making welcoming spaces for all to experience nature in their own way. Gay has promoted enhanced access to green spaces in urban areas, launched enduring community partnerships and established a collective voice for the Genesee River. For more about these projects, see: https://www.geneseelandtrust.org/programs and https://www.geneseelandtrust.org/partners
For over 10 years, Gay worked with former County Executive Tom Frey, City of Rochester, Ibero-American Development Corporation, CSX and Conkey neighborhoods to create the Thomas R. Frey Trail at El Camino and Conkey Corner Park (which includes a community-built playground). After decades of effort, these signature projects host annual community programs such as the Harvest Festival, the Conkey Cruisers cycling program and the El Camino Community Celebration, as well as City-based youth education programs (e.g., Landscaper Apprentices, El Camino Play). These investments spawned other projects being carried forward by our partners, notably International Plaza and El Camino Estates.
In the past several years, Gay coalesced stakeholders, neighborhood organizations, and community voices (including Greentopia, Tour Blend, the City of Rochester and several River-adjacent neighborhood groups) to promote access to, appreciation of, and advocacy for the 13-mile stretch of the Genesee River through the City of Rochester (https://www.geneseelandtrust.org/genesee-river-alliance). Now called the Genesee River Alliance (GRA), which is coordinated by Helen Dumas of Genesee Land Trust, Inc. (through grants that Gay secured), the organization hosts monthly walks along the Genesee River focusing on Rochester’s unique anti-slavery, industrial, and indigenous history, species and birds and sponsored GPS trail mapping, a Black History Month presentation to a local school, and is working on other initiatives. The GRA’s collective voice also will be crucial in supporting the City-led “ROC the Riverway” initiatives and assisting State-led efforts to create a new State Park in the High Falls area. Led by Gay, Genesee Land Trust, Inc. was a co-convenor of community listening sessions around that project, and she continues to advocate for connections between this new State Park and the surrounding built environment, including the Running Track Bridge.
Further, building upon 20-plus years of effort, relationships and the successes achieved with the urban projects described above, both the Genesee Land Trust and GRA are working with the City of Rochester and other community partners to acquire land to achieve the dream of extending the Genesee River Trail system northward from the El Camino Trail to the Lake Ontario shoreline on the East, to loop with the similar trail along the West side of the Genesee River.
Also under Gay’s leadership, the Land Trust is developing a 7-county strategic conservation plan that includes the built as well as natural environment to help make wise choices for future conservation and accessible trail projects by identifying key attributes ranging from climate resilience, important wildlife habitats, high quality farmland, equity and environmental justice. This will be a resource for protecting land and water for the benefit of the all in Greater Rochester region into the future.
In short, this nomination, seeks to recognize Gay Mills’ 30+ year body of work, her ability to bring partners together to work towards a common goal, her patient and persistent advocacy and quiet ability to push on past obstacles, and her decades of consistent effort to achieve critical benefits for the City of Rochester and its surrounding region through preservation of green spaces and creation of a built environment that promotes access to and enjoyment of such spaces for all.
Images above: Gay (center) with members of Genesee Land Trust staff and board.
Second row - Gay with (from left) former Board President Allen Handelman, her daughter Claire, and Board Member Simeon Banister.