Marion Stoddart and "Work of 1000"

Join citizen activist Marion Stoddart for a screening of  Work of 1000.

The film tells the exhilarating story of Marion's work to clean-up the Nashua River, once one of the ten most polluted rivers in America.  Marion will lead a discussion after the film. 

Marion Stoddart has been heralded as an environmental leader for her role in cleaning up the Nashua River.  In the 1960's, the Nashua River was declared one of the 10 most polluted rivers in the United States - the result of years of industrial waste, local dumping, and neglect. When  Marion Stoddart moved to the area with her family, they lived so close to the river they could smell its noxious fumes. Looking for deeper purpose in her life, she decided to take on the biggest challenge she could find that she could imagine accomplishing in her lifetime—restoring the Nashua. Marion was able to rouse policy makers, politicians, business leaders, and a skeptical public to share her vision for a clean river. She lobbied successfully for legislation, including the landmark Massachusetts Clean Water Act. She petitioned the Federal government for millions of dollars of promised funds to fight the pollution—and won. Her dramatic success in mobilizing the community showed people that change was possible, even though many had lost hope.  The Nashua River is now an internationally recognized ecological success story and a locally celebrated natural resource.

Stoddart has received many awards including the U.N.Environmental Programme's Global 500 Award in Nairobi, Kenya (1987), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Environmental Award (1972), and a presidential commendation (1970). She was

profiled in National Geographic (1995) and in an award-winning

children's book A River Ran Wild by Lynne Cherry (1992); she was a

National Women's History Project Honoree as "One of the Women Taking the

Lead to Save our Planet" (2009).

This program is sponsored by the Friends of the Assabet River NWR with funding from an Every Day Events Grant. These grants are sponsored by Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc.  More info at www.farnwr.org.