The Green Party of Virginia (GPVA) is the Virginia state affiliate of the Green Party of the United States. GPVA focuses on local elections for offices such as the Virginia House of Delegates, town council, board of supervisors, and soil & water conservation district (SWCD) board of directors. The party earned its first electoral victories in November 1997 when Phil Welch was elected to the Buena Vista Soil & Water Conservation District board [1] and Stephanie Porras was elected to the Lexington Soil & Conservation District board [2]. Since that time, several other GPVA members have run for office in both partisan and non-partisan races, with some success at the town council and SWCD level.