DONOR STORIES: Robbie Cox
On a hot, windless August day in 1979, Robbie Cox and his partner, Julia, were out sailing on Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia. Beneath the summer sun, their boat was becalmed, floating motionlessly on the lake.
As they floated, Robbie gazed out at the mountains surrounding the lake and wondered about the hiking trails hidden in the shade of the forest. He told Julia, "I would love to be just walking through this forest." A month later, Robbie’s connection to Sierra Club came to life when Julia gave Robbie a birthday present: a subscription to SIERRA Magazine.
Reading SIERRA quickly inspired Robbie to action. Remembering those forested hiking trails he’d seen while sailing, Robbie signed up for a Sierra Club backpacking outing in the Dolly Sods Wilderness of West Virginia. Engaging with the Sierra Club and the environment felt like a natural next step for him to take.
"I thought, wilderness, working with the ecology movement seemed so appropriate. I study social movements, I've been in the Civil Rights Movement, I've studied the Vietnam movement, it seemed only natural as the ecology movement was becoming more and more a massive or a large environmental happening. And so, I made the commitment to move further both in my research and in beginning to work with the local Sierra Club," he says.
He joined his own local Group and very quickly became chair of its Wilderness Committee. In 1982 he was named chair of his local Group, and two years later, became chair of the North Carolina Chapter. Ultimately Robbie served three terms as president of the nationwide Sierra Club: 1994-96, in 2000-2001, and again in 2007-2008.
Reflecting on his time as president and his years of volunteer work, Robbie shared some thoughts on the legacy of his work: "I hope … I've left a sense of civility or an attempt to continue to look forward over the horizon, … of trying to bring people together and to do so in a way that respects the other, and to be able to sustain the culture that enables the organization itself to prosper and remain healthy."
After years of devotion to Sierra Club and its work, Robbie has decided to build upon the legacy of his work by establishing a gift to the North Carolina Chapter in his estate plan. When asked what inspired this plan, Robbie shared: “The N.C. Chapter and the national Club have been in the forefront in protecting the natural and human environments for many decades. I wanted to leave a legacy gift that enables the Chapter specifically to continue its important work in my adopted state.”
The North Carolina Chapter is honored to have the support of Robbie and other legacy donors. This gift supports the full scope of the Chapter’s work: advocating for clean energy, fighting big polluters, and of course, getting people outdoors – often on the kind of forested hiking trails that Robbie first imagined on that day in August.
What do you want your legacy to be? Planned gifts have a powerful impact on the future of the Chapter – without any impact on your budget today. To learn more about how you can join Robbie in the Rachel Carson Society and create a legacy at the North Carolina Chapter, reach out to Julia Curtis (julia.curtis@sierraclub.org, (800) 932-4270).
About Us: The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with tens of thousands of members and supporters in North Carolina. We help people from all backgrounds explore nature and our outdoor heritage, and work to promote clean energy, protect wildlife, safeguard the health of our communities, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action.