Toms Neck Preserve

The Chappaquiddick Open Space Committee was the engine behind the creation of this preserve. A unique group of citizen volunteers, it identifies Chappaquiddick properties that are worthy of conservation but are unable, mostly for reasons of cost, to be stand-alone priorities for the land bank… and then transforms them into priorities by offering to raise funds to help the land bank protect them. More than $4 million have been donated to the land bank via the committee, some $2.2 of which was donated for Toms Neck. This represented some 40% of the purchase price but even more propulsion came in the form of volunteer creditors, solicited by the committee, who loaned the land bank another 35% of the total. Including 8 acres of wild field and surrounding a 5-acre salt pond, the preserve is indeed a stand-alone. Toms Neck – a property whose acquisition was as extraordinary as the land itself.