Ahhh its that time of year when hopeful college students all over the planet are opening their mail with trembling fingers to learn “Due to the unusually outstanding entries this year, your application has been denied”. That was me Friday when I saw that I had finally gotten the letter from our interpretive sign grant application. “So many other fine projects, unable to award yours, please submit again, and have a nice day.” Sigh.
Sniff. (I defy them to show me one single project for watershed public outreach that will interest more people or involve more children in understanding nature.) Thank you very much Kelly and Jeff for pledging your support and involvement. Well, we’re not giving up, just changing strategy. The very next morning we were off to REI where we had been invited to talk about how Worth A Dam could benefit from their involvement and support.
REI as a corporation offers hundreds of thousands of dollars in stewardship grants, primarily for projects that involve getting children outside and involved with the natural world. We talked a little about the John Muir Mountain camp and it’s involvement at a parking lot event they are having in June, to which we were invited. We also talked about a possible service project that could benefit Worth A Dam. The monies have all been applied for this year, but our projects were described as appropriate for consideration next year.
In the mean time, REI is going to be help with a “service project” creek cleanup before the beaver festival. I suggested that a few kayaks would have best access to the dams and would generate the most media for the effort and show REI’s good works and create interest in the festival. If we become a featured non-profit for REI we go in the newsletter and even on the website. They will also distribute brochures for us on the interest wall, and allow us to have an interest table indoors some saturday in front of the climbing wall if we would like.
Hard working, enthusiastic, sporty, environmentally savvy, beaver supporters. Who could ask for anything more?
