Ten Years of Choosing to See

Authored by: Ronnie Pessetto

In 2026, Seven Canyons Trust turns ten years old!

That number is both small and meaningful. Ten years is small compared to the age of the creeks that shaped this valley. Meaningful when measured against the impact a young organization can have in that amount of time.

Seven Canyons Trust did not begin with certainty. It began with a question. In a University of Utah classroom, students were asked to look at a city they thought they knew and notice what was missing. They learned that the Salt Lake Valley was once shaped by seven creeks. They learned those creeks had been buried, diverted, and forgotten in the name of progress. And once that truth was seen, it could not be unseen.

What followed was not a straight line. It was not a master plan. It was a decision to care, and then another, and then another. A decision to listen to water. A decision to believe that communities are capable of more than they are often given credit for. A decision to start without knowing how the story would end.

Ten years later, we have learned that restoration is not only about land or water. It is about memory. It is about responsibility. It is about asking who we are willing to show up for and what we are willing to protect when there is no guarantee of success.

The creeks have taught us this. They have waited patiently beneath asphalt and concrete, reminding us that systems do not disappear simply because we stop paying attention to them. They resurface in floods. They surface in heat. They surface in neighborhoods that lack shade, access, and beauty. They surface in moments when the city is forced to reckon with its past decisions.

Seven Canyons Trust exists because we chose to see that reckoning not as a failure, but as an invitation.

Over the last decade, this organization has grown alongside a community willing to imagine something better. We have watched water return to places where it was once erased. We have stood at confluences where restoration became visible and shared. We have learned that progress happens not through perfection, but through persistence and partnership and humility.

As Executive Director, I often feel the weight of what remains undone. There is still so much buried. So much fragmented. So much work ahead. But Seven Canyons Trust turning ten has given me clarity. This work has never been about having all the answers. It has been about refusing to look away.

Anniversaries ask us to look both backward and forward. When I look back, I see people who cared enough to begin. When I look forward, I see a future that depends on whether we continue to choose attention over convenience and stewardship over forgetting.

The next ten years will demand more from us. More listening. More courage. More collaboration across boundaries that were never natural to begin with. But if the first ten years have taught me anything, it is this. Change does not start when everything is clear. It starts when someone decides that what is hidden and/or impaired still matters.

This is not just a celebration of an organization. It is a reminder of what becomes possible when people choose to see their place clearly and love it enough to stay.

The creeks are still here. The questions are still alive. And the work of choosing to see continues.

Thank you for being part of it.