SOLitude Lake Management is accepting nominations for free lake and pond makeover services through the company’s Love Your Lake program. The annual initiative aims to support non-profit charities and 
foundations in dire need of recreational lake and pond restoration, with the goal of improving outdoor experiences for disadvantaged or special needs children, disabled individuals, or veterans and servicemembers.
The effort is backed by The SOLution, a company-wide program that strives to “create a better world” be encouraging and practicing volunteerism, community outreach, sustainability and environmental consciousness. SOLitude’s leadership feels it is important to not only be good stewards of the environment, but also to fulfill company core values to “take action and be accountable” and to “protect and respect nature.”
Love Your Lake nominees must be considered a non-profit with a waterbody that serves as a centerpiece for foundation activities. The selected lake or pond suffering from severe aquatic weeds and algae, sedimentation, nutrient loading or associated problems will receive the in-kind services and product donations necessary to make the waterbody functional and beautiful again.
To nominate a non-profit for the Love Your Lake program, visit www.solitudelakemanagement.com/loveyourlake and submit your story and photos.
Since the program began in 2013, SOLitude has helped restore and rejuvenate waterbodies belonging to summer camps for children with life-threatening illnesses, fishing properties used for veteran rehabilitation, and recreational facilities for wounded veterans and their families, throughout the country. Selected organizations include:
JT’s YMCA Camp Grom
Camp Grom is a 70-acre beach-style adventure camp designed for wounded veterans, families of the fallen and adults and children with ALS, disabilities or special needs. To create a camp fit for adventurers, SOLitude and partners initially contributed more than $50,000 in goods and in-kind services to include aeration systems, fish habitat construction, fish stocking and fish feeders, and continue to provide ongoing maintenance services.
Camp Holiday Trails
Camp Holiday Trails offers children with special and chronic health needs a fun, safe and medically-supervised camp experience. The camp’s pond enables children to enjoy therapeutic activities such as canoeing, swimming and fishing. SOLitude donated and installed a floating fountain to enhance water quality and conducted a phase of invasive plant treatments to restore open water. SOLitude continues to provide ongoing maintenance.
Lancaster Children’s Home
Lancaster Children’s Home provides safe, stable, nurturing and home-like environments for abused, abandoned or neglected children. To ensure that over 100 children could enjoy the home’s 1.25-acre pond, SOLitude and partners donated several diffuser aeration systems and a floating fountain with decorative lights. SOLitude also applied beneficial bacterial products to help balance water quality, and continues to provide ongoing maintenance services each year.
Veterans of Foreign Wars
SOLitude provided VFW Post 637, the local Veterans of Foreign Wars organization with a complete “makeover” of a pond infested with nuisance aquatic weeds that negatively impacted the ecology of the ecosystem and made it difficult for fish and other aquatic life to thrive. Today, SOLitude’s continued maintenance and restoration services allow veterans and their families to have access to a clean, beautiful lake for recreation.
Beach FC
Beach FC is a youth soccer development organization focused on creating athletic opportunities for children of all ages. As part of the pro-bono management of the organization’s freshwater pond, SOLitude has committed to providing the installation and maintenance of a floating fountain, managing algae and aquatic vegetation growth, performing nutrient remediation services, and cultivating a healthy shoreline to improve the longevity of the aquatic resource.
Learn more and submit nominations at www.solitudelakemanagement.com/loveyourlake.
