On a small farm in Verona, something big has been happening. It involves a landowner, a plant scientist from New Jersey, and a lot of pawpaw trees.
After years of searching for farmland he could afford, Adam D’Angelo was on the brink of giving up his dream. Like so many beginning farmers, he kept running into the same obstacle: land prices driven out of reach.
Across Wisconsin, millions of acres of farmland are changing hands as current farmers retire. At the same time, it’s increasingly difficult for new farmers like Adam to access that same land.
Each time a farm goes up for sale, there’s a real risk it’ll be lost to commercial or residential development. And for new farmers, competing with those offers can be nearly impossible.
In 2020, landowner E Makar decided they were ready to sell their family farm. But they also wanted to protect it from future development, so they contacted Groundswell’s Yimmuaj Yang for help.
Landowner E Makar
Could Groundswell help E find the right person to buy the property—someone who would love and care for the land like E’s family had done for so many years before?
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Adam D’Angelo grew up in Sussex County, New Jersey, where cows outnumbered people. His grandparents owned a nursery and garden center, and his neighbors owned a Christmas tree farm. Adam’s parents managed both businesses.
When the owners of each business decided to sell, the D’Angelo family experienced a dual loss all too common among farmers who don’t own their land: They lost their income as well as their access to the product still growing in the fields.
From a young age, Adam understood the importance of farmers owning their own land. But he didn’t know yet how difficult it could be to find affordable land.
Adam D’Angelo, Breeding Operations Manager at Savanna Institute
Adam’s love of nature and knowledge of tree farming came to fruition during college at Rutgers University. There, he discovered a passion for plant breeding while working at a lab that bred hazelnuts for disease resistance. Then graduate school brought Adam to Madison, where he studied plant breeding and genetics.
Adam always knew he wanted to be a farmer, and now he was ready to live his dream. Unfortunately, cost was the major barrier keeping him from owning land.
“It was so hard to buy farmland because of how expensive it is. I started to contact everyone and every organization helping farmers access farmland.” –Adam D’Angelo
After two years of searching for land, putting in offers, and being outbid by developers, Adam was ready to give up. Then in 2025, he got a call from Bonnie Warndahl at Renewing the Countryside, one of Groundswell’s partner organizations.
Was he still interested in buying farmland? Because someone with land in the Town of Verona was looking for a buyer…
With your support, Groundswell can help more people like Adam access land.
With help from Renewing the Countryside’s Farmland Access Navigator Team and American Farmland Trust, Adam applied to buy E Makar’s property, called Elizabeth Rock Farms.
Back at Groundswell, Community Director Yimmuaj Yang was hard at work developing our Farmland Ownership Program. This program provides a pathway to ownership by making farmland more affordable using what’s called the Buy Protect Sell+ (BPS+) model.
Here’s how the BPS+ model works: A land trust like Groundswell buys farmland using public and private funding. Then we protect the land from development forever with a conservation easement. Removing the development rights from a property reduces the sale price, making it more affordable for a new farmer.
“[Landowners] still get a payout, but they do something good. They know [the land’s] going to someone who appreciates their land and is going to care for it.” –Adam D’Angelo
In January 2026, Adam finally became the owner of his own 21-acre farm.
Aerial view of Elizabeth Rock Farms and surrounding properties in Verona
This spring, Adam’s excited to get planting: pawpaw trees, heartnut trees, vines of hardy kiwis, honeyberries, chestnut trees, serviceberries, and cornelian cherries! If everything goes according to plan, one day there’ll be a herd of sheep grazing in the pasture among the orchards.
“Getting to plant these seedlings and watch them grow into trees, and watch them make food for people for years to come…is really exciting.” –Adam D’Angelo
About half of the property is wooded, and Adam intends to keep it that way. Rather than being cut down, the forest will harbor willow trees, mushrooms, ramps, and other valuable products. And the pine trees will continue to provide homes for the local red-tailed hawks, which happen to be great for natural vole control.
This is why protecting farmland can mean so much more than protecting crop fields: Farmers like Adam plant crops that grow year after year. Perennial crops reduce soil erosion into nearby creeks and improve air quality by absorbing carbon. Over time, farms like this one contribute to a more resilient food system that can better withstand climate change.
So much is possible—but only with your help.
Elizabeth Rock Farms is just one example of the exciting opportunities ahead of us. Let’s work together to make them happen. Here are some other projects on the horizon:
- improving water quality and public access in the Black Earth Creek valley by protecting hundreds more acres of prairies and farmland along local streams
- keeping high-quality soil available for agriculture in the towns of Dunn and Dunkirk by preserving several more farms with conservation easements
- conserving forests, wetlands, and farmland along Token Creek in DeForest
I urge you to give today. Your contribution will go far but stay local.
Adam’s farm is one piece of a much bigger picture. When you help protect farmland, you’re also safeguarding wildlife habitat, improving water quality, and strengthening the health of entire ecosystems. Your support makes it all possible, ensuring our community can support both people and nature long into the future.
Thank you for partnering with us to protect special places forever!
We’re lucky to live in a place where natural beauty takes so many forms. Restored wetlands, meandering trout streams, sparkling lakes, and quiet woods are all within reach. Local trails invite adventure. There’s something alive and changing around every corner.
Long before any of us arrived, the Ho-Chunk Nation and other Indigenous peoples cared for these places with respect and balance. We continue to learn from their example today.
For 42 years, people who care deeply about this area have helped Groundswell Conservancy protect the lands and waters we love. These special places will continue to inspire us all because they’re protected forever.
Please give today to keep the momentum going.
Gray-headed coneflowers at Patrick Marsh Conservancy | Photo by Tony Abate
South-central Wisconsin is one of the most naturally and culturally rich areas in the Midwest. Tall bluffs rising above winding river valleys. Wetlands shimmering with birdlife. Prairies blanketing hillsides with ever-changing colors. Forests sheltering local wildlife. Farms spread like quilts made over generations.
Early conservation heroes, thoughtful landowners, and generous supporters have all helped keep it this way.
This past year has been extraordinary. The Groundswell community helped protect unique places—each one an example of the lands and waters that make our region so special. These include:
- wetlands added to the Lake Mills Wildlife Area, improving wildlife habitat and water quality while expanding public access for year-round activities.
- wetlands and rewilded farmland along the Yahara River, our first partnership with the Town of Dunkirk’s Rural Preservation Program.
- rich farmlands in the Town of Dunn, making sure some of the best soils in the country will always be available to grow food in the future!
Whether you’ve been part of this effort for years, or you’re just joining us now, your commitment matters. You can help build on this incredible progress.
Picking tomatoes at Westport Farm | Photo by Ben Lam
We have the chance—and the responsibility—to keep going. As development pressures mount and our population grows, so does the urgency to protect what makes this part of the Midwest feel like home.
Looking ahead to 2026, you can help advance conservation where we live. Your support will:
- improve water quality and public access, and enhance farmland and watershed protections in the Black Earth Creek valley.
- preserve the agricultural character and fertile soils of the region for future generations of landowners.
- enhance public access to and restore habitat at Westport Prairie, converting more farmland to prairie and creating a welcoming trails and signage plan.
- support HMoob (Hmong) farmers at Westport Farm by providing more accessible services and facilities—like soil health improvements and high tunnels for over-winter planting.
- develop a sustainable buy-protect-sell model to help emerging, new American, and other farmers find affordable land that will be available for future generations.
And we expect to close on our largest project ever—a partnership with Ducks Unlimited to protect 3 square miles of high-quality wildlife habitat along the Sugar River.
This land will become part of Avon Bottoms Wildlife Area in Rock County. Expect more opportunities for outdoor recreation, and lasting protection for wildlife and clean water.
More landowners and communities are thinking about their land’s future—and reaching out for our help. The time for us all to act is now.
Your gift today will allow us to move quickly to protect more places, care for the lands we’ve already conserved, and ensure that everyone has access to nature.
Your contribution—whether it’s $50, $500, or $5,000—is an investment in our shared home.
Harvesting rice at the Lifting Hearts Therapy Garden | Photo by Ben Lam
Because of your generosity, we’re not only preserving land—we’re building a future where wildlife thrives, family farms remain farms, and everyone can experience the joy and peace that nature brings.
With your partnership, we can ensure that these special places continue to flourish for generations to come.
Every day we act, we protect more. And every day we wait, we risk missing opportunities to conserve what we love.
Thank you for standing with Groundswell Conservancy—for your generosity, your vision, and your belief that our land, water, and wildlife are worth protecting forever.
Thank you for making Groundswell’s #GivingTuesday an incredible success.
As of this afternoon, we raised $15,000. Ed Krois & Joan Hayden matched your generosity with an additional $10,000, bringing the total to $25,000 to support conservation where you live!
We know there are many important causes to give to this time of year. We’re honored and grateful you’ve chosen Groundswell so together, we can protect more special places, forever.
We invite you to join us in person for our Winter Open House on Tuesday, December 9 from 4:30 – 7 p.m. at the Groundswell office. Let’s celebrate another great year for local conservation with refreshments and good company! You can RSVP here.
We have an exciting land purchase and new conservation easements in the works. Your support will help make them possible. We’ll share more details in the coming months.
Thank you again for being part of this special day of giving!
Photo credit: Sam Douglass
It’s #GivingTuesday, and now’s your chance to support local conservation with a gift to Groundswell!
Every gift made today will be MATCHED up to $10,000 thanks to Ed Krois & Joan Hayden. Your donation of $50 becomes $100, $100 becomes $200, and so on.
DOUBLE MY GIFT to protect the special places that make our corner of the Midwest so remarkable.
South-central Wisconsin’s landscapes and cultural heritage are part of what make this region extraordinary. Development pressures are growing, and the choices we make now will determine who can experience and enjoy our natural areas in the future. This is a pivotal moment to protect the land and water our communities depend on.
Thank you for supporting conservation right here in your community.
You can also give over the phone by calling 608-258-9797. Or you can mail a check to 211 S. Paterson St., Suite 250, Madison, WI 53703. (Please include a note indicating your gift is part of #GivingTuesday.)
We’re excited to share that our spring fundraiser was a great success!
The Groundswell community raised $11,904. And several donors matched that generosity with an additional $5,000, bringing the total to $16,904 to support conservation where you live!
Thank you to everyone who gave toward the fundraiser!
Whenever you choose to give you Groundswell, your contributions make a real difference. They allow Groundswell to work with more local families like the Rolfs of Pine Quarry to save their land from future development.
Your support also helps preserve wildlife habitat, improve water quality, and create more equitable access to land. You’re not just protecting places — you’re making a lasting impact on communities, nature, and future generations.
Thank you to everyone partnering with us to protect special places forever!
Out at Pine Quarry Farm, the Black Earth Creek winds through fields of corn stubble, and past the old farmstead. A rocky, tree-covered bluff rises high above the valley. From the top, you can see for miles in all directions.
Pine Quarry Farm is a beautiful landscape if there ever was one, and you can help protect it — and many other special places like it — forever.
Pine Quarry has been in the Rolfs family for four generations. Today, cousins Dan Rolfs and Katie Corbin are leading the efforts to conserve this 136-acre property. Dan proposed to his wife, Karen, up on the bluff. And Katie has been going there to stargaze with her husband since they met in college.
“I think this is one of the most beautiful places in Wisconsin.” – Katie Corbin
Dan, Katie, and their siblings planned to care for the land themselves, but “life happens.” It’s hard to devote as much time or money to the land as they want to.
Like so many local families who own land they care about, the Rolfs are wrestling with how to protect it for future generations.
Pine Quarry is just one of many treasured landscapes in need of conservation. We’re getting more requests than ever to help families protect their farms, prairies, wetlands, and more.
It used to be that only a dozen or so people contacted Groundswell each year about conserving their land. Now, people are contacting Groundswell weekly!
Your support will help us meet the increasing demand for local conservation.
William Rolfs, Dan and Katie’s great-great grandfather
The Rolfs family has been caring for Pine Quarry for nearly 125 years.
In 1901 William Rolfs bought a large plot of land in the Black Earth Creek Valley for $8,150. Over the next century, the Rolfs passed the land down to each generation of the family.
Dan, Katie, and the rest of the family never imagined letting the farm go. But personal circumstances have changed in unpredictable ways, as they often do.
And the family’s vision for Pine Quarry changed, too. They saw the improvements happening at Festge County Park down the road and wondered what Pine Quarry could be like — if given enough time, money, and effort.
The Rolfs family’s new vision led them to contact Groundswell Conservancy. Over time, we’ve developed a shared vision of better water quality in Black Earth Creek, sustainable farming practices, and public access for recreation.
With your support, Groundswell can help more local families like the Rolfs leave legacies of land for everyone to enjoy.
“We want to adequately care for the land, and we haven’t really been able to have the resources to do all the things that we want to do, and this would help solve a number of those problems at once.” – Katie Corbin
Skylar Rolfs, Dan Rolfs, Katie Corbin, and Adam Corbin at Pine Quarry
For many years now, Dan has spent whatever time he can out at Pine Quarry clearing brush and maintaining trails along the ridge. He doesn’t live on the property, though, so it’s a big time commitment to get out there. And it’s hard work! But he loves it.
Still, he’ll be the first to tell you that he’s not getting any younger. For Dan and the entire family, it’s time to figure out what’s next for the land — and what’s best for the land — because they can’t do it all themselves.
“It’s not the easy thing to think about, but it’s the responsible thing to think about.” – Dan Rolfs
Dan isn’t the only one who feels the pressure of time passing.
The majority of farmers in Wisconsin are 55 or older. This means thousands of farms will be changing hands over the next decade.
Here in south central Wisconsin, we’re in the state’s fastest-growing area. And as the population grows, so will the pressure to develop more and more land.
In many ways, time isn’t on our side. It’s important that we act now to protect our farms, water, and wildlife habitats.
Carolyn and Carl Rolfs swimming in Black Earth Creek
When Dan and Katie’s grandparents owned the farm, they grew corn, oats, and hay in rotation and raised dairy cows. They worked hard to provide for their family. And still they found time to improve the land.
Katie’s mother, Carolyn, and Dan’s father, Carl, can remember their parents planting pine trees beside the old stone quarry when they were children. If they remember it right, their parents got the trees from the DNR or another government agency. Those pine trees are still there today.
The kind of restoration work that the Rolfs family would love to do takes more than just time. It takes financial means that the average person doesn’t have.
That’s why it’s so important for organizations like Groundswell to partner with local, county, and state agencies. Together, we can provide much-needed resources — but even those are limited.
Please donate to protect natural resources right here in south central Wisconsin.
The shared vision for Pine Quarry goes beyond honoring the family’s legacy and protecting it for their children. It includes protecting this place for the benefit of our whole community.
“We kinda decided that the best way to protect it for our children would be to make it a public place where they can go, where it’s maintained properly the way that we’ve always wanted to but have never really been able to achieve and so that other people can enjoy it.” – Katie Corbin
Imagine being able to visit Pine Quarry with your own loved ones on a spring day. You hike up the bluff to search for early blooms and pause at the top to admire the view. Maybe you make a mental note to come back for snowshoeing this winter …
Or maybe you’re there on a summer afternoon. South of the bluff, there’s Black Earth Creek, clear and inviting. You dangle your feet in the water, lean back, and watch the hawks soar above you.
So much is possible, but only with your help!
Pine Quarry is just one example of the exciting opportunities ahead of us. Let’s work together to make them happen. Here are some other projects on the horizon:
- Reconnect the Ho-Chunk Nation with more ancestral lands by purchasing and protecting an exceptional landscape along the Yahara River with rare cultural resources
- Work with families on protecting and transferring their farmland through a Buy-Protect-Sell program for emerging and next-generation farmers
- Increase Avon Bottoms Wildlife Area by purchasing almost 2,000 acres, which would provide important public access along the south shore of the Sugar River
Please give today — your contribution will go far but stay local.
Thank you for your support. Together, we can offer local families the opportunity to conserve their land for generations to come.
We can’t thank you enough for making #GivingTuesday a success.
Together, we raised $14,898.68. Pat & Ron Paska and Sheila & Ron Endres matched your generosity with an additional $7,000, bringing the total to $21,898.68 to support conservation where you live!
We’re so grateful to everyone who supported Groundswell—whether online, over the phone, by mail, or while visiting the office! How lucky we are to be part of such an inspiring community committed to conservation.
We have some exciting projects to look forward to in 2025! And your support will help make them possible.
Thank you again for being part of this special day of giving and protecting special places.
Today’s the day! It’s #GivingTuesday, and now’s your chance to DOUBLE your support for local conservation with a gift to Groundswell.
Every gift made today will be MATCHED up to $7,000 thanks to Pat & Ron Paska and Sheila & Ron Endres! That means your donation of $50 becomes $100, $100 becomes $200, $250 becomes $500, and so on.
#GivingTuesday is a great time to support conservation where you live. By donating today, you’re…
Protecting wildlife habitats
Connecting people with nature
Providing equitable access to land for growers
…and much more!
You can also give over the phone by calling 608-258-9797. Or you can mail a check to 211 S. Paterson St., Suite 250, Madison, WI 53703. (Please include a note indicating your gift is part of #GivingTuesday.)
Thank you for caring about special places!
A few months ago, Henry Wiedmeyer, passed away in a traffic accident at the age of 26. Henry was a Prairie Partners Intern with us in 2018, where he learned about land management practices and gained hands-on work experience.
His family shared with us this story about Henry. In 2013, Henry had a long discussion with a friend, and she asked how he would define happiness. Henrys response was “nature and authentic human connections made there”. Last summer he reunited with the same friend and she asked if he still held the same belief about happiness. His response, “Absolutely!”
Henry’s family has chosen to honor his memory and passion for conservation by fundraising for Groundswell and our Outdoor Volunteering program. We are grateful for the Wiedmeyer Family’s support.
Thank you to Henry’s cousin, Nathan Marzion, for sharing with his followers.
Join us for Wisconsin’s largest bird conservation fundraiser! It’s like a walk-a-thon style fundraiser, but instead of logging miles, we’ll be logging bird sightings. We’ll be participating in the Great Wisconsin Birdathon as team Grousewell!
Great Wisconsin Birdathon
Saturday, May 4, 2024
9:00 – 11:00 am
Patrick Marsh – Stein Rd, Sun Prairie, WI 53590
What to Expect
The outing will be approximately one to two miles of slow-paced walking on a dirt trail. It’ll be spring migration, so there should be great bird activity. American White Pelicans are typically at Patrick Marsh during this time of year too!
No Birding Experience Required
Everyone is welcome and no birding experience is required! This is a great opportunity to join even if it’ll be your very first-time birding. Birding is a team effort and we can all learn from each other.
Binoculars
The Feminist Bird Club Chapter of Madison has generously let us borrow some of their binoculars! We’ll have binoculars available to borrow (a limited amount). Please indicate in the registration if you would like to borrow a pair during the outing.
Registration
If you plan to join us for the outing, please register at the button below.
Support Our Team
The Birdathon is a great opportunity to come together and support bird conservation. We hope you’ll support us, the birds, and our community during this great event.
Half of the donations that we raise will go to Groundswell and half will go towards the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin’s Bird Protection Fund.