Thompson Steps Back from Annapolis Green

By Kathy Knotts

Area environmental group, Annapolis Green, turns over a new leaf in the new year. On January 1, 2022, founder Elvia Thompson will step down as head of the nonprofit organization. She will turn over the day-to-day reins to co-founder Lynne Forsman and welcome Maggie Hughes to the role of executive director.

“Fifteen years ago, Lynne and I embarked on a journey to shine light on the fact that protecting the environment is about protecting us—our health and our prosperity,” Thompson writes in her newsletter. “We began by connecting local businesses, governments, and the public in general with the environmental community. We also connected members of the local environmental community with one another.

I’m so proud of what we have accomplished.”

Annapolis Green has been active in teaching the citizens of the Chesapeake Bay how to reduce their impact on the planet, through campaigns on waste reduction, recycling and driving electric vehicles. “Lynne and I built Annapolis Green from scratch, based on the idea that we could move our community to work together for a healthy environment by showing how global issues impact us right here where we live,” Thompson says.

The organization has been involved in high-profile events such as the Rotary Club’s annual Crab Feast, which Annapolis Green helped pivot into a zero-waste event, providing composting of crab shells and paper goods and recycling everything else. Their water refilling stations, Naptown Tap, can be found at major events, including the Annapolis Boat Shows, offering guests a chance to ditch plastic bottles and fill up a reusable vessel with water for free. They erected cigarette butt bins in locations around the city and set up composting programs to collect kitchen scraps from residents.

“It seems like yesterday when we began creating momentum offering fun and engaging ways to bring local environmental efforts together and to the community’s forefront. Our unique personalities and talents made us a terrific partnership and things just took off.  And in a blink, it was 15 years,” said Forsman. “It’s wonderful to now be experiencing a similar synergy with Maggie.”

Hughes, an Eastern Shore native, brings a personal commitment to environmental protection in this region as well as 10 years of environmental nonprofit experience with proven management skills and fundraising strategies. “I’m in awe of the work that Annapolis Green has done over the last 15 years and I’m excited to dive right in!” 

Thompson said she hopes to move on to work on state, national, and global aspects of the Climate Crisis, possibly in the area of electric vehicle adoption policy. “It’s been a joy to do this work for the past 15 years,” she writes. “It’s never really been work. Instead, it’s been a calling and a passion.”