When you donate to the Foundation, you don’t just ensure we have the funds for restoration work, but you are also ensuring that educational and conservation programs receive funding from our Community Grants. To date, we have granted millions of dollars to groups like the 14 Eye on Nature Field Trips. The Foundation’s grant to this group allowed 681 third-through eighth-grade students to visit the Billy Frank, Jr., Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge. The small-group field trips were led by trained volunteers. The students explored the trail system and learned about mapping and ethnobotany, the study of how people of a particular culture and/or region make use of indigenous plants.
The Friends of the Anacortes Community Forest Lands also received a community grant that delivered place-based environmental education to every kindergarten, third-grade and seventh-grade student in the Anacortes School District. These immersive educational programs give students hands-on learning, allowing students to take their classroom learning into the real world.
We also kicked off the inaugural round of Norm Winn Grants. Norm Winn was a long-time Foundation board member and a lifelong conservationist who believed in the value and work of preserving the natural spaces and the wildlife and habitat they support. His legacy gift directs the Foundation to expand the reach of our grants to programs throughout the Pacific Northwest. In the first year, we received 18 grant applications, of which six were approved to receive $15,000 to $20,000 each. The grants will fund programs like wolverine monitoring, protecting old-growth forest, post-wildfire restoration and educational programming on coastal underwater forests.
There are dozens of these stories to share about the great programs and work we’ve supported with our grants. Your financial giving allows us to fund many worthwhile projects and programs. These great programs and the Foundation grants that support them are not possible without your donations and legacy giving to Keta Legacy Foundation. If you would like to learn more about donating or setting up a legacy gift, please contact us at coordinator@ketalegacy.org.
– Mindy Roberts, Secretary