About Celebrating Open Spaces

We invite you to come celebrate Door County’s beautiful open spaces!

Each of the events offered in our new Celebrating Open Spaces series is designed to deepen our collective understanding and appreciation for this unique place called Door County.

Dining for Open Spaces

Dining for Open Spaces events are hosted by Land Trust supporters to benefit the Door County Land Trust.  Hosts welcome you into their homes or out on the land for lunches, cocktail parties and dinners.  Most Dining events include a visit to one of Door County’s beautiful open spaces.  Select events are for members only, but the majority are open to everyone to try.  We hope you’ll enjoy Dining for Open Spaces, and become a member. Dining for Open Spaces is a critical fundraiser for the Land Trust.  The dollars raised help maintain our many nature preserves.  These nature preserves are open for all to enjoy at no charge.  Dining events also help underwrite free programming the Land Trust offers throughout the year, such as our Explore the Door hikes and outings.  Since its debut in 2004, Dining for Open Spaces has raised over $216,000 to help us preserve the lands we love!

Explore the Door

The Explore the Door series offers guided adventures for you to experience the beautiful places you’ve helped the Land Trust protect.  Outings are led by trained volunteer hike leaders and/or Land Trust staff.  All Explore the Door outings are free of charge and will be held rain or shine.  Registration is required, but most hikes do not require membership and are open to the public.  Occasionally, hikes on privately owned, conservation easement protected properties are offered to members only. If you’d like to explore on your own, Door County Land Trust nature preserves are open for all to enjoy each and every day at no charge. Request a complimentary copy of our “Hiking Trails of the Door County Land Trust” map on our home page.

Special Events

The Door County Land Trust partners with a variety of groups and organizations for outings on Land Trust nature preserves.  These partnerships offer experiences like prose and poetry writing workshops, sunrise yoga, and youth summer camp that provide ways of connecting people with nature.  You can find a listing of special events under the ‘Events’ tab on our website.  The registration process varies widely from event to event, and may be coordinated through a partnering organization. Thank you to our Dining for Open Spaces, Explore the Door, and Community Outreach volunteer teams for their generosity, their loyal support, and their hours spent creating the 2014 Celebrating Open Spaces calendar of events.  It takes many, many volunteers to maintain our nature preserves, lead outings, host events and coordinate the details of each event throughout the year.   The Door County Land Trust is grateful for our volunteers’ commitment and dedication.

Dining for Open Spaces:  JoAnn Dull, Team Leader; Donna Hake, Co-Leader; Dolores Hermann, Diane Miller, Windsor McCutcheon

Explore the Door: Dolores Hermann, Team Leader; Marilyn Hansotia, Co-Leader; Anne Grunau, Lucy Klug, Jack Finger

Annual Gathering:  Deanna D’Abbraccio & Barbara Morgan, Team Leaders; TC Johnson, Walt Shields

Community Outreach Team:  Beth Coleman, Katie Dahl, Mike Seaquist, Bill Wolff