1. Elizabeth Finley Broaddus, Environmentalist Page 1 of 7
11 June 2014
Memorial for Elizabeth Finley Broaddus, Environmentalist
12 March 1996 – 2 June 2014
Thank you Hank / Mr. Berg. I’m Lynn Broaddus, Finley’s Wisconsin aunt, Ike’s big
sister. There are so many of us here to share our love for Finley, but also for Callie
and Coleman, Julie and Ike. I realized last night that as the family representative
in the service that perhaps I should say a quick thanks to the outpouring of
support that this community has given to Finley and her family through this time.
What a gift of love it’s been.
Julie and Ike asked me to say a little bit about why we’re here at Airlie. Yes, Airlie
is a beautiful venue, close to the Broaddus home. But the real reason is that Airlie
has a 50+ year history as a leader in the things that were the essence of Finley:
caring for the environment, and for people. Airlie walks the talk: They’ve been a
national leader in environmental and social justice issues, and have made a
concerted effort to reduce their own footprint. The Pavilion where we’ll gather
after the service achieved LEED Gold certification for its recent renovation. Airlie
also played a role in the history of Earth Day. The founder, Wisconsin Senator
Gaylord Nelson, made one of his early announcements about his vision for Earth
Day here in 1969. Just as Senator Nelson had hoped, Earth Day galvanized a
movement that, forty-some years later, includes Finley.
And of course, what more fitting place to remember Finley than in a butterfly
garden. She loved butterflies, and she and Julie had big plans for butterfly

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gardens at home. After the service Julie hopes you’ll have time to walk through
the Airlie butterfly garden, and be with Finley.
Finley loved life, all life. Her passion for nature began early. She preferred the
creek in her back yard, digging for worms and catching frogs to the tidy life of
playing with dolls. There was no “yuck factor” for Finley. Many a summer day
she’d be out swimming in the pond behind her house, flipping the family canoe
with friends, not at all put off by the muck and tall grasses along the shore, or the
critters who shared the pond with her. She loved camping, or simply sleeping
outside on the porch on warm summer evenings.
And she loved animals. Like Dr. Doolittle, she easily made friends with every
animal and the animals she came in touch with were all nicer as a result. From
Riley, the family’s late Labrador, to the bunnies, goats, horses, cats, and especially
the chickens, Finley had a special touch with them all. She’d spend a lot of time
handling the chickens so that they’d get used to humans, even able to make most
of the roosters friendly. One of her tricks was to pick wine berries from the edge
of the woods and give them to the chickens for a special treat. The hens would
jump into the air, feet splayed, to get the berries from Finley’s hands.
As Finley got older, her love for the out-of-doors and nature led her to the shore
including many summers of marine biology camp, and when it was her turn to
select a week-long trip with her grandmother, she wanted to go “somewhere with
sea shells”, and so they went to Sanibel Island where they hunted for shells and
kayaked the mangroves.

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Back in her home territory she sought out volunteer opportunities, with the Land
Trust of Virginia and across the way from here with Environmental Studies on the
Piedmont where Finley’s volunteering ranged from digging ditches, monitoring
bluebird boxes, extracting honey from the frames, and filling and labeling the
honey jars. She loved her growing expertise and comfort with the bees.
Somewhere in those early teen years that love for nature started turning into
concern for nature, especially the threats posed by climate change. She started
finding small ways that she could have personal impact: turning off the lights,
riding her bike on Old Bust Head Road to pick up litter, convincing her mother to
convert much of their lawn into meadow. Climate change threatened all that she
loved, and it made her frustrated, even angry at times, to see people being so
thoughtless. Finley was careful with her money, her personal assets, and didn’t
see why anyone else had the right to waste our shared assets – the air, water, and
minerals that we all depend on.
At the hospital she’d turn off the lights in empty rooms as she did her exercise
laps around the ward. And she made a difference. The Hopkins nurses there tell
us that they are now recycling more, and taking her energy conservation tips back
home with them. Every little bit helps.
Finley hinted that perhaps green was her destiny. In her college application she
writes:

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“Within about ten minutes of meeting me, people register two things: 1) I
have green eyes, and 2) my greatest ambition is to do everything I can to
protect the environment. As a child, I often wondered if my eyes were
green because of the countless hours I spent gazing into the bottle-green
water of the pond in my back yard. Seventeen years (and a few biology
classes) later, I’m aware that staring at something can’t magically change
the color of your eyes. Nevertheless, my green eyes are still my favorite
physical attribute because they remind me of who I am, and what I want to
accomplish.”
Ike, if her eye color was her destiny, then I guess it’s your doing. In one version of
her application she wrote “My eyes remind me of my Dad, who gave me his own
‘green eye gene,’ and of his advice, ‘do what you love, and you’ll never work a day
in your life.’ I can’t think of anything I would want to spend my life doing more
than protecting the environment.”
During her junior year, at a time of being extremely frustrated with the pace of
inaction and feeling like she couldn’t do enough, Finley started to think about new
ways to leverage her influence, about impact in a larger context. At school that
year she launched a drive during which she enlisted friends and school families
bring her hundreds of catalogues they didn’t want and then she un-subscribed
them through www.CatalogueChoice.com, personally saving 8 mature trees,
thousands of pounds of greenhouse gases and solid waste, and thousands of
gallons of water. Seeing the kind of real-time difference she could make
brightened her mood, gave her renewed hope, and helped shape her goals.

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As she began to think about who she was going to be in this world, she started
becoming very politically interested and knew that she wanted to make a
difference – a big difference. She so looked forward to pursuing environmental
policy studies at William and Mary.
Having to put those dreams on hold had to be immensely disappointing to her,
especially at a point in her life when she was undoubtedly filled with normal
senior excitement and impatience about breaking out of high school and moving
on to bigger things. But Finley was not one to dwell on things she couldn’t do
anything about. Her Pinterest board is full of sayings like “Choose to be happy”,
“Do something epic”, “Love what you do, or leave”.
And so, wanting to do something positive, which turned into something epic, in
February Finley started to formulate the idea for what became Finley’s ‘Green
Leap Forward’ Fund. The idea was to create a fund so that she would be able to
make some small grants to environmental causes she cared about. She was
initially hoping for a few thousand dollars. The newspaper got wind of her efforts,
and published a goal of $18,000 by her 18th
birthday. 18 x 1,000. Suddenly that
was her goal. But the small circle of us who were monitoring the gifts coming in
knew that she was going to go way past that. We worked hard to keep that under
wraps, wanting very much to surprise her on her birthday. And surprise her we
did!
When Finley saw the long, green list of people who had donated, her jaw dropped
in shock. It was so fun to be on the telephone with her as she watched on FB and

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saw the posting of the giant check representing more than $63,000 on hand at
the NPCF, with more donations rolling in every day. By the end of May, donations
were close to $105,000 from 43 (CHECK) states and all continents but Antarctica.
It was humbling.
Very shortly after her birthday, Finley started thinking more intentionally about
her grants. For one thing, she quickly realized that this was not going to be a one-
time deal. She had created something big. And the fund had enough money in it
that she could make some decent-sized grants while still maintaining enough of a
balance to keep this going for many years. And if she was strategic, she might be
able to justify and attract continued donations from others.
Wanting to keep momentum going, her first grants were timed for Earth Day. She
honed in on two specific grantees, the Green Belt Movement based in Kenya, and
the Cacapon Institute based in a West Virginia watershed that Finley knew well.
Through this phase Finley was too sick to do much posting on FB, but make no
mistake about it: she was calling the shots. Finley had very specific ideas about
what she wanted to support, and why she selected these two groups. Yes, it was
partly about tree-planting and all the multiple benefits which come with
reforestation in both urban and rural areas. But it was more than that: She liked
that these groups were about action, and that they had demonstrated track
records of working with people and empowering communities to make positive,
lasting change. Finley put “Green” in the title of her fund because in her words,
“Green means go” and it also “represents progress and efficiency.” These groups
represented the kind of action she wanted to promote.

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This winter was as cold and dark as any that most of us have ever known.
However, the bone-chilling news wasn’t coming just from the weather channel.
And like the weather, for those of us on the sidelines there wasn’t much we could
do about it but wring our hands and possibly volunteer at Old Bust Head. When
Finley established her ‘Green Leap Forward’ Fund, suddenly we had some way we
could help, a way that we could help her reach her vision. Whether it was Gigi
and Mimi’s “Grandmas’ Challenge”, bake sale fundraisers, friends trying to help us
get as many states filled in as possible, or friends with connections recruiting the
big bucks, everyone helped.
Ike and Julie said that their animals were nicer because of Finley’s touch, and I
think that the same could be said for us. Creating her Green Leap Forward Fund
gave Finley meaning and purpose at a time when she really needed it. So it may
have seemed like our efforts were a way for us to take care of her, but really, she
was taking care of US. By giving all of US a way to be relevant – relevant to her,
her family, and to this planet we all share. I know that I will be forever grateful
that Finley gave me purpose and meaning during a time when I, especially so far
away, was otherwise pretty useless.
So Finley, here’s to you: thanks for making us nicer people, for leaving the earth
better off, and for giving us a way to keep you in our lives.