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People on Aquidneck Island know Will White and his dog Allie.

No matter the weather, they’re a fixture on the Sakonnet Greenway Trail (SGT) getting in a quick walk before dinner or checking the trail’s condition on a weekend morning; “We see him out there all the time,” said Alex Chuman, Conservation Director for the Aquidneck Island Land Trust.

For more than a decade, White has maintained a stretch of trail near his home on Bramans Lane in Portsmouth. The trail was relatively new when he moved in, and he watched with interest as it started to grow. He walked outside one day, saw the overgrown grass and thought, “Well, maybe I’ll just mow it real quick.”

“The years went by, and I just kept on doing it,” White said. He expanded his footprint over time, and from middle school on, his son Henry – now an adult at flight school in Texas – came along and helped out as well.

“I’m a normal guy with a normal job, I don’t have a ton of time,” said White, who works for a yacht builder. “It doesn’t have to be this big grandiose thing to try to help. A little bit goes a long way.”

Still, it makes his day when he’s pulling invasive weeds or trimming the vines creeping into the edges of the trail, and runners, hikers, or horseback riders go out of their way to stop and say thank you.

“We’ve developed friendships over the years,” White said. “It’s great to be able to just get out and walk in nature, get some fresh air, and feel better. If people are in a better mood, it just makes the whole place better.”

When Chuman was new to his role at the Land Trust, he wondered how one segment of the Greenway was always perfectly neat; “I said, how is this getting done? Then one day, I met Will.”

Hiring someone to maintain this trail segment could cost the organization thousands of dollars.

“We’re lucky to have a lot of people who come out to volunteer, but it’s not often we find someone so committed. There’s an endless amount of work to be done. It makes such a difference for us,” said Sean Grandy, Stewardship Manager for the Aquidneck Island Land Trust.

The Sakonnet Greenway Trail – which is the longest continuous nature trail on Aquidneck Island – stretches for eleven miles, crossing 16 properties, including both public and private land. The trail begins on Linden Lane in Portsmouth, looping through vineyards, forests, pastures, golf greens, and farm fields before reaching the trail’s other end near Wyatt Road in Middletown.

The Land Trust has just completed an extension to the SGT, connecting the Linden Lane trailhead in Portsmouth to the Glen Pasture Loop, off Glen Farm Road, which adds a contiguous mile to the Greenway Trail. The new trail segment meanders around horse paddocks, crosses a creek, and features scenic views of historic Glen Farm Stables.

Hanna Lloyd, an environmental studies student at Salve Regina University, is a frequent trail user who recently became more aware of the role that the Land Trust and its volunteers play in making this resource available.

As the inaugural Board Student Fellow for the Aquidneck Island Land Trust, she’s enjoying this opportunity to experience the full footprint of the organization’s work, visiting projects, participating in volunteer stewardship events, and sharing what she’s learned with her peers.

“Conservation is something that our generation should be concerned about,” Lloyd said. “This protection of land and the environment will affect not just us, but our children as well.”

White and his fellow volunteers are a big part of ensuring that the trail remains accessible for the people who use it each year – the Land Trust estimates 60,000 annual visits to its trails – regular mowing and clearing fallen branches, but also larger efforts like building bridges to install over boggy segments of the trail. The landowners along the trail also make critical contributions, maintaining their sections and allowing access so that everyone can benefit.

“It’s a lot of land. As a small staff, we can’t do it all alone,” said Chuman.

White has watched the trail grow over time, stretching across many of the different types of habitats that make up Aquidneck Island. He loves seeing the shady forests, the pastures full of cows, and the grassy meadows where bobolinks – a favorite field bird – gather in the spring, their bubbling call sounding like R2D2 from Star Wars, he said.

Whether building the trail or caretaking, piecing together small contributions add up to much more than the sum of their parts. And in a place where access to land is limited by the sea, the value of that land protection and stewardship is visible all around you, every day. Supporting that conservation with his volunteer efforts is a straightforward way to make a difference for everyone on Aquidneck Island, White said.

“I’m happy to do my part,” he said. “Every acre you lose is one you’re just not going to get back. Once it’s lost, it’s lost forever.”