It’s one thing to sip a crisp, refreshing Headwaters Pale Ale (or two!). It’s another when you realize that enjoying one of your favorite brews helps support local water advocacy groups. Here’s how: Victory Brewing Company donates a portion of the proceeds from every bottle sold to its Victory Headwaters Grant.
It all started in 2011, when co-founderss Bill Covaleski and Ron Barchet decided to pay homage to the Brandywine Creek’s pristine waters—the source of all of Victory’s beers—with a grant program to give back to those who care for the environment. Bill conceived the Headwaters name and how the beer’s proceeds could have a major impact on preserving the creek by building on the relationship he’d developed with local conservation organizations.
Since then, this community-oriented company has donated nearly $60,000 to local groups such as the Brandywine Red Clay Alliance, Guardians of the Brandywine and The Brandywine Conservancy.
“We recognize the influential social position that our company has earned and wanted our Headwaters Pale Ale and the grant it supports to stand as positive reinforcement of the notion that our community’s health is dependent on waterways’ health,” Bill said.
Watching Over the Watershed
Victory recently presented a Headwaters Grant check for $1,500 to the Brandywine Red Clay Alliance (BRC). It’s not the first grant given to this worthy group: Previous donations have been used to support its Red Streams Blue Program, an effort to bring streams in the Brandywine and Red Clay watersheds up to state standards.
“We’ve used the Headwaters Grant funding for two projects on Little Buck Run in Parkesburg,” said Robert G. Struble Jr., watershed conservation director. “Not only has Victory supported our work through funding, but its employees also have helped to plant trees and shrubs at several of our stream restoration projects.”
Other BRC projects that the Headwaters Grant will support include ongoing watershed restoration, which now numbers 15 streams. The organization also is eyeing work on Ludwig’s Run above Downingtown, Plum Run near West Chester and Red Clay Creek in Kennett Square.
“In addition to the direct support, Headwaters Grant funds are used to match other funding, which leverages it by as much as seven times,” Struble added.
The BRC is the oldest small watershed organization in the United States. Over the past 72 years, the BRC has helped to form the Chester County Conservation District and the Chester County Water Resources Authority, pioneered the first landfill and early land application systems for wastewater treatment in Chester County and led flood control and water supply efforts in the 1960s that included Marsh Creek reservoir and Chambers Lake. Its education programs involve more than 10,000 school-age children and adults each year.
Guardians of the Brandywine is another local organization that protects, preserves and enhances the waters and natural resources of the Upper East Branch of the Brandywine Creek’s watershed through conservation and education. Its members believe that a healthy watershed provides innumerable health, economic and environmental benefits to the community.
The Guardians of the Brandywine’s Headwaters Grant has provided funding for:
- A research project conducted by an environmental studies student at Villanova University that evaluated how different land use practices and the relative degree of urbanization have impacted suspended sediment and nitrate delivery into the East Branch of the Brandywine Creek.
- Commitments to purchase land along the Upper East Branch, which will extend the Struble Trail northward into Wallace Township and land that will protect Marsh Creek from headwaters to the Upper East Branch.
- Commitments to provide hands-on watershed education for girls in grades 5–8, which includes watershed dynamics and water quality testing.
Programs that help to protect land from development leaves riparian buffers intact and undeveloped and provides perpetual protection to the high-quality waters of the Upper East Branch and Marsh Creek. Education at all levels instills an appreciation for the watershed and encourages long-term involvement.
“You can join us and support organizations like the Brandywine Red Clay Alliance and Guardians of the Brandywine by making a donation to our Headwaters Grant,” Bill noted. “Of course, you can also support the grant by purchasing bottles of our easy-drinking Headwaters Pale Ale.”
Find Victory Brewing Company at 420 Acorn Ln. in Downingtown; phone: (610) 873-0881; 650 W. Cypress St. in Kennett Square; phone: (484) 730-1870; and 3127 Lower Valley Rd. in Parkesburg; phone: (484) 718-5080.
- Photos: Victory Brewing Compamy
