Become a member
The Ned Smith Center is a nonprofit organization that relies on contributions.
Our members enable the Center to fulfill our mission of connecting people in our community and beyond with nature and the arts. Members are essential to keeping the Center fully staffed, the lights on, and our beloved programs, events, trails, and concerts running smoothly each year.
UPDATE: The Ned Smith Center introduced a new membership structure on December 1, 2024. Membership levels remain the same, however the program features revised member benefits and discounts. See below.
CLICK ON YOUR PREFERRED OPTION BELOW TO JOIN OR RENEW TODAY!
Or call 717-692-3699, Ext. 6 for assistance.
The Center is phasing out member vouchers for concert tickets. All vouchers issued prior to December 1 will still be honored in 2025, but may not be used in combination with the discounted member rate on tickets. For more information, see the FAQs below.
Corporate and organizational memberships are also available. Complete the online membership registration above or fill out the form below.
Donate
You can make a difference at the Ned Smith Center for Nature and Art in so many ways. Your gift supports the Center’s mission of merging the worlds of nature and the arts and ensures that central PA residents and visitors have access to top-rated nature and arts education, trails, play areas, concerts, events, and more.
Click below to invest today!
Saw-Whet Owl Research
The Northern Saw-whet owl (Aegolius acadicus) is the smallest of Pennsylvania’s owls, barely as tall as a soda can and weighing a little more than a roll of quarters. Saw-whets are rusty brown below, chocolate-colored above with white spots, and with large, yellow eyes. Unlike the Eastern Screech-owl, also common across Pennsylvania, the Saw-whet has no feathered “ear” tufts sticking up on its head. Saw-whets nest in tree cavities with the males advertising their territories beginning in late winter.
The most common call is a high, whistled toot, about one per second, that sounds a lot like the back-up alarm on a large truck. Other common vocalizations include cat-like mews; long, eerie whines and sharp bill-snaps. In fact, the saw-whet owl got its name from that peculiar tooting sound that resembles the rasping sound made by a file sharpening, or whetting, a saw. Other folk names included Saw-filer, Sparrow Owl, Whetsaw and White-fronted Owl. Its scientific name, Aegolius acadicus, means “the owl of Acadia,” a reference to Nova Scotia, where the first specimen was collected in the late 1700s.
Since 1997, the Ned Smith Center for Nature and Art has been a leader in the effort to learn more about the Northern Saw-whet Owl, the East’s smallest and most elusive owls.
Each autumn the Center’s team of trained researchers and volunteers harmlessly catch, band and release hundreds of these tiny raptors at three banding stations in central Pennsylvania. They lure them into nearly invisible mist nets by playing a recording of the owl’s unique tooting call.
The Center also plays a key role in coordinating an informal network of more than 120 owl banding stations across North America. In the process, we’ve helped map the movements of a species so secretive that most avid birders have never glimpsed one – an owl that was, until recently, considered quite rare.
Click below to learn more or symbolically adopt an owl!
Wild Mushroom Conservation and Education Area (WMCEA)
The Center is excited to introduce a new education and stewardship project on Ned Smith Center lands. The area covering most of the south side of NSC property between the Rail Trail and the Wiconisco Creek was designated as the Wild Mushroom Conservation and Education Area (WMCEA) in July 2024. This area, about 30 acres in total, is usually ripe with fungi given its tendency to remain damp and shaded most of the year.
As the proposal for the conservation area noted, roughly half of the Ned Smith Center lands and the most popular trails are on the Millersburg watershed. Clean, filtered water is a byproduct of a healthy forest, and so are a variety of mushrooms. Diversity of visible and forest-valuable mushrooms is linked to the following attributes: 1) soil type, 2) a diversity of native plants, 3) the juxtaposition of different aged trees, some evergreen and some deciduous, 4) logs and limbs (dead wood) on the forest floor, 5) a combination of wet and dry sites, and 6) wet weather and time of the year.
Because the Ned Smith lands between the Rail Trail and the Wiconisco Creek feature all of these attributes at one time or another, this site has been selected by the Ned Smith Center for designation as the WMCEA.
Thanks mainly to dedicated volunteer Jerry Hassinger, 278 species of fungi and lichen have been documented on NSCNA property, the majority of which were found within the WMCEA. It is our hope that through further observations and research, we can better understand the importance of fungi to our forest’s health. During the next few years we will be putting more effort into developing educational signage for the area. There is also potential for stewardship and conservation projects in the area, based on encouraging healthy native habitats, which are ecologically balanced with native fungi.
The objectives of this designation are to:
- contribute to an ongoing inventory of the flora, fauna and fungi found on Ned Smith Center lands,
- support and continue the past management strategies that have resulted in clean water and a diversity of visible and forest-valuable fungi,
- provide focus for citizen scientists interested in photographing and inventorying fungi and to encourage the use of the “Fungi of the Ned Smith Center” project on iNaturalist (see link below),
- highlight a frequently overlooked recreational resource,
- support the Ned Smith Center’s educational efforts to help foster a deeper connection with nature inclusive of an appreciation of the importance and value of forest-friendly fungi,
- provide a prototype for the development of similar areas throughout Pennsylvania and beyond, and
- provide another dimension to help reinforce the unique nature of the Ned Smith Center.
From an educational perspective, Center staff and volunteers hope for more fungi forays and public programming utilizing the WMCEA to help us teach about the wonderful little mushrooms, lichen and molds without which our forests could not function. Stay tuned for more details!