UD communication students worked with a local nonprofit organization to raise awareness about this forested area in Lewes, Delaware, which is the last section of the first property deeded to early settlers in the state.

Speaking for the trees

Article by Hilary Douwes Photos by Nick Roth/Cape Gazette and courtesy of the Greater Lewes Foundation January 09, 2025

UD students partner with community on public relations campaign to protect last forested property in Lewes

A class of University of Delaware communication students put theory into practice last semester by partnering with a nonprofit organization in Lewes, Delaware, on a project to save the last forested area in the popular coastal town.

The students in professor Steve Momorella’s public relations campaign planning class joined forces with the Greater Lewes Foundation’s Open Space Alliance to create a public relations campaign about the Fourth Street Preserve project. The foundation is fundraising to buy a 30-acre parcel of land in the city that has both environmental and historical significance.

Once 100 acres, the property was the first piece of land deeded to Delaware’s earliest settlers, more than 350 years ago. It serves an important role as a habitat for a variety of wildlife, including bald eagles, and protects the surrounding area from flooding.

The foundation has a goal of raising $8 million by Sept. 15, 2025, in order to buy the land from the current owners. To date, the group has raised about 70% of the amount and is optimistic it will meet the goal. Once sold, the city of Lewes will own the land, which will be designated as conservation space.

“This was a great opportunity for the students,” Momorella said. “They learned to understand the audience, the strategy, how to focus the tools to meet goals.”

From classwork to real impact

The students began by researching and conducting surveys and interviews with Foundation and community members about the project. The goal was to raise awareness in other parts of the state, especially northern Delaware.

Then the class divided into four teams, each working on a different public relations tactic. One group focused on increasing traffic to the project’s website, another created an Instagram account, and another wrote a press release sent to media in northern Delaware. The last group hosted a webinar for UD’s environmental student groups featuring the Delaware chair of the Surfrider Foundation, a national environmental activist network dedicated to protecting the world’s oceans.

Megan Emmerling, a senior honors communication major with a PR concentration, led the team that created an Instagram account for the project. They narrowed their target audience to other UD students “because that’s who we have the greatest access to,” and then built a following by posting flyers about the project in the student centers, following and tagging UD registered student organizations and environmental groups they thought would be interested in the topic, and holding a raffle where contestants had to tag others to follow the account in order to qualify for the prize.

This map shows the location of the Fourth Street Preserve project and the boundaries of the 30-acre property.

Emmerling, who is from Ocean City, New Jersey, said the team tracked the growth in the number of followers, the number of clicks to the OSA website the account generated, and the percentage of followers who expressed interest in learning more about the project to measure the account’s success.

“50% of our followers clicked on the link to the website, and 80% of our survey audience said they wanted to learn more about it,” Emmerling said. “We think that’s a success.”

Momorella said that while students are “amazing” at creating social media posts, the class gave them valuable experience about working on behalf of someone else. Students have to consider the client’s goals and strategy when creating the content for each post.

“They’re so good at TikTok and Instagram, when they get into the business environment, they have to turn that into more productive posts that are more product based,” he said.

Emmerling said the experience taught her an important lesson about working with clients and how to manage different viewpoints.

“It was interesting to see the dynamic of what I think is a good idea versus what my client thinks is a good idea and finding that good middle compromise,” she said.

Susan Hyde, campaign coordinator with Horizon Philanthropic Services, a Lewes-based company that is managing the Fourth Street Preserve project, was impressed by the students’ professional attitudes.

“It’s a full-time job for us to just focus on getting the word out to our community,” she said. “To have someone else that we didn’t have to steer or direct, who would take it and run to other areas of Delaware was very, very helpful.”

This was the second campaign with real-world impact the class organized. After flooding from the remnants of Hurricane Helene devastated the mountains of North Carolina in September, Momorella had student teams pick a nonprofit organization and either raise money or collect goods to send to the region.

It was a lesson not only in public relations, but also in logistics, as the students had to pay to ship the items they collected.

“They did a sub campaign to raise money for shipping,” Momorella said. “So smart. They got $385 so we were able to send out about 10 big boxes of diapers and canned goods. It was really cool.”

While Emmerling has not seen the Fourth Street property, she said the forest and the project will have a special place in her heart.

“This is one of my first, real PR clients technically,” Emmerling said. “It made it so much more rewarding that it was someone in Delaware and with the community instead of a faceless brand that I've never heard of before.”