Dune-Grass Planting: A Groff Family Tradition
“Our dad would have been very proud of us.”
That’s how Fenton Groff III described the efforts of the Groff family on Oct. 25 when eight members from as far away as Maine, joined more than 50 other volunteers in Avalon’s annual fall dune grass planting effort. Fenton Groff Jr. would have good reason to be proud of his family because, more than a half-century ago, it was he who personally started and led the efforts in Avalon to preserve the island’s natural dunes.
Dune grass planting was just one of his many valuable initiatives. Known as Avalon’s father of dune and beach preservation, Groff was an Avalon resident and an award-winning salesman for the DuPont Company. It was in 1969 when “our new home on 74th Street was recently completed,” his son explained recently from his home in Ventnor. “Dad noticed that there were only a few small plants growing along a thin snow fence on the beach, and no dunes for protection from future storm surge. This was the primary reason my father consulted with Mayor [Ellsworth] Armacost and others to establish the Avalon Conservation Commission.”
That was the precursor to today’s Avalon Environmental Commission. The first dune grass planting took place in 1969.
Groff partnered the Conservation Commission with the Avalon Elementary School, and the local Boy Scout troop. Together, they forged Avalon’s first effort to save the dunes and protect our beaches. Those efforts have now continued for 56 years. At spring and fall dune grass plantings this year, more than 24,000 new plants were added.
Today, Avalon is often recognized for its dune management and beach protection efforts. It’s important to remember how it all started, more than six decades ago by Fenton Groff Jr. He’d have a right to be very proud.