Jessica Belvin, a 2009 Gloucester High School graduate and former Hayes resident now living in Urbanna, has been taking action to make the world a better place. And she’s starting with her own backyard.

Belvin and her boyfriend Timmy Coker have been setting up nesting platforms in the Rappahannock River near her Middlesex County home to ensure that female mallards can successfully lay their eggs. The two have been putting these platforms in areas where they own duck blinds in Urbanna and in the York River near where her parents live.

 “Wetland/wildlife conservation is extremely important for this world,” she said. “With the constant growth of the human population and inadequate demands seeking to be met, our wetlands and wooded environments are on the front line of damage. It’s important to give back in any way we can—not only for the wildlife we surround, but for us as well.”

Growing up on the York River, she said that she was exposed ...