When Rebekah Thomson moved to the Island 16 years ago, she was looking for a place where her kids could grow up in tune to their natural environment. The next 16 years became about maintaining that environment, for her kids and for every Islander. 

Now the new executive director of the Martha’s Vineyard Vision Fellowship, Ms. Thomson will continue in that spirit, guided by her experience as a parent and an advocate for Island preservation.

“We’re grappling with preserving the Island, but at what cost,” she said. “The goal [is] to make sure that we’re being responsible stewards, and leaning on science, encouraging advanced degrees and diving into learning...which the Vision Fellowship absolutely supports.” 

Founded by the Kohlberg family, which also owns the Vineyard Gazette, the Vision Fellowship funds educational advancement and specific projects aimed at addressing Island challenges. It also awards scholarships to graduating high school seniors studying areas of social and environmental sustainability. 

Since its founding in 2006, the organization has supported nearly 200 fellows. Ms. Thomson stepped into the executive director role after Melissa Hackney, the longtime executive director of the fellowship, announced her retirement last year. 

Ms. Thomson moved to the Island in 2010 with her husband, Josh, and her young daughter Leah, now a rising senior at the high school. Her son Moses, now a rising sophomore, was on the way, and daughter Taeko, now a rising sixth grader, arrived in 2014. 

Her parents, then Chilmark residents, convinced her to give birth to Moses on the Vineyard. The hospital was brand new and her parents described it as “the Four Seasons,” Ms. Thomson recalled. 

Her family quickly put down roots. 

“[That] definitely fueled my commitment to wanting to keep that environment safe for them and preserved for them,” she said. 

When the schools began considering turf replacements for their playing fields, Ms. Thomson emerged as a voice in support of grass — a surface with more potential for bolstering carbon sequestration, soil health and regenerative land practices. 

“Intuitively, I knew I didn’t support [plastic],” said Ms. Thomson. 

The question she asked became less about why turf fields were bad, and more about how the schools could do grass better. The organization helped install high-performing grass fields at the Island’s grade schools, technologies that last longer than plastic without breaking the bank or polluting waterways with fertilizers.

“We did it with a real coalition,” said Ms. Thomson. 

That coalition was composed of environmental organizations, community organizations and researchers, including many former Vision Fellows and sponsoring organizations.

“I actually don’t know why I didn’t apply for a fellowship for that work,” she said. 

The Vision Fellowship cultivates the next generation of Vineyard leaders, said Ms. Thomson. It’s an investment in people and place, a concept she has become familiar with through her work on the new Chilmark Preschool building. 

Ms. Thomson’s mother, Susan Parker, helped found the Chilmark Preschool in the early 2000s to fill the “early childcare desert” up-Island. Leasing a classroom from the Chilmark School, the feeder program boosted faltering enrollment at the grade school by keeping kids on the same Chilmark campus. 

“It worked so well that the Chilmark School needed that classroom back,” said Ms. Thomson, whose three kids all attended the Chilmark Preschool and the Chilmark School. 

When Ms. Thomson’s mother died in 2014, Ms. Thomson took up her work with the preschool as a member of the board of directors. She led efforts to fund, design and build the new preschool building, which sits adjacent to the Chilmark School and will open this coming school year.

The project was a labor of love, said Ms. Thomson, who taught middle school English and history for nine years early in her career. Reliable, affordable, early childhood education is not only important for children, but for their families, she said. 

“It enables them to commit to working and be really stable members of our workforce, which is what the Island needs,” said Ms. Thomson.

Even as she learns the ropes of administering the Vision Fellowship, Ms. Thomson will continue coaching parents of young children at the Family Center of Martha’s Vineyard Community Services. She will also continue to parent, although it was her 15-year-old son Moses who recently reminded her to go for a walk every morning before starting her work day. 

“That was good parenting advice for myself,” she said. 

She walks down Indian Hill Road in West Tisbury, enjoying the environment she has helped preserve since she arrived. 

“I feel like this was kind of where it was all leading,” she said, reflecting on her new position. “It makes sense.”