Conservation Projects

REI's grant program seeks to engage communities in active stewardship of the environment. We want to ensure that we take care of the outdoor places where we love to play. Therefore, our grant funding encourages volunteer stewardship of public lands and waterways where people enjoy outdoor recreation.

Below are several examples of grants that REI funded in 2008. During 2008, REI funded 395 groups for an annual total of $3.7 million in grants. For more information about the groups listed below, please click on the names of the organizations.

• For the Love of the Lake
• Dallas, TX $10,000
• Each month, over 400 Volunteers gather at the For The Love Of The Lake (FTLOTL) office to obtain clean up supplies and head out to the lake. Armed with trash bags, rakes, reach-it tools and gloves, the volunteers fan out and spend the morning making sure their section of the shoreline sparkles for yet another month. In addition, a fleet of canoe and kayak enthusiasts removes floating trash that is out of reach of volunteers on the shoreline. Before starting out, volunteers receive a 'safety talk', are urged to have fun and work in groups while on the water. To encourage the 'Fun Factor,' volunteers are urged to return any unusual trash items they find to the FTLOTL office where they are tagged and placed into the Trash Museum. Due to increased participation in these service projects, FTLOTL has moved to weekly clean ups (ever Saturday). The primary purpose of this ongoing effort is to address the pressing need for supplemental litter management at Dallas' urban oasis for cyclist, joggers, hikers, sailors, and paddlers. Secondary goals are to increase awareness of the environmental impact of recreational usage of the park, and to foster relationships between individuals and community organizations that increase interest and stewardship of the city's most precious natural resource. Funds from REI will provide supplies for the service projects and educational materials to help recruit more volunteers.

• South Yuba River Citizens League (SYRCL)
• Nevada City, CA $5,000
• SYRCL staff along with volunteers from the community will guide 12 students on a short, focused field project that will provide place-based learning as well as training for leadership roles within their community. These students will take part in ecological assessment and experiential education set in the natural, pristine beauty of Donner Summit, the headwaters for the South Yuba and North Fork American Rivers. Following the excursion, students will serve as site leaders for SYRCL's Great Yuba Clean-Up on September 20th, an event that typically draws over 400 volunteers to dozens of sites throughout the watershed. The students will recruit, train and lead volunteers from their community to join them on Donner Summit. Youth participants will be selected from communities throughout the watershed. This trans-regional approach serves as a bridge between the headwaters community and those from the lower watershed and gives the project participants and their community volunteers a broad perspective on their role as environmental stewards. REI grant funds will support project coordination, travel, food and gear for the teens during their field project.

• Bull Run Mountain Conservancy
• Broad Run, VA $4,370
• The Bull Run Mountains Conservancy (BRMC) was founded to protect the Bull Run Mountains through education, research, and stewardship. Through their Youth Outdoors Program they provide year-round outdoor education opportunities for children to introduce them to the idea that the outdoors is fun and exciting, and teaches us that everyone has a responsibility to protect and enhance our shared public lands. Their core belief is that every child deserves the chance to learn about the natural environment and the joys of outdoor recreation. Through these programs volunteer naturalists share the wonders of the natural world with participating youth in a fun and exciting way. Funds from REI will provide programmatic support for their pre-school and winter nature camps as well as Nature Days so that these youth can continue to attend these programs free of charge, as well as water bottles and journals for each participant to use.

• Friends of Trees
• Portland, OR $10,000
• For over 18 years, Friends of Trees (FOT) award winning Natural Area Restoration (NAR) program has successfully implemented community-based restoration projects by forming effective partnerships, training crew leaders to lead other volunteers in restoration activities, recruiting volunteers for planting and maintenance events, designing projects in a volunteer friendly manner and committing to ongoing maintenance and monitoring. Through REI's grant, FOT will increase its Natural Area Restoration program by four sites as well as conduct maintenance and monitoring on these sites over a four year period. Sites will be chosen by FOT staff and bureau and agency partners once funding is secured. REI grant funds

• Philadelphia Mountain Bicycling Association
• Philadelphia, PA $9,726
• The Philadelphia Mountain Bicycling Association (PMBA) volunteers over 1000 hours per year towards the reclamation, maintenance and upkeep of the multi-user trail network in the Fairmount Park System in Philadelphia. Being a trail system in a large urban environment, their goals are to eliminate user conflicts and promote peaceful coexistence between all user groups, as well as help repair the trail network which is in dire shape due to poor design and severe erosion. Through their ongoing volunteer service projects they provide much needed trail maintenance support for the park. Their service projects have seen a steady increase in participation over the years and through this grant REI will provide the organization with tools and other field supplies for their increasingly popular work days.

• Wildlands Restoration Volunteers
• Boulder, CO $4,985
• Wildlands Restoration Volunteers (WRV) engages northern Colorado communities in the stewardship and restoration of public lands. WRV restores streams and wetlands, builds or maintains trails, obliterates old roads, restores areas burned by wildfire, removes invasive weeds, and much more. WRV will conduct 35 volunteer land stewardship projects in the coming 12 months with many local, state and federal land management agency partners. WRV collaborates closely with many partners, stakeholders, community members, and user groups throughout all stages of a project. WRV's volunteer restoration efforts seek to build community while healing natural areas. REI grant funds will support project coordination while providing tools, supplies and outreach materials. In addition, REI's grant will provide gear that will be used to recognize long-term outstanding volunteers.

• Girl Scouts of Greater Atlanta
• Atlanta, GA $5,000
• The Girl Scout Council of Northwest Georgia encourages girls to discover, connect and take action within their communities and the world around them. Through their Outdoor Education Program girls participate in outdoor recreation activities such as hiking, camping, canoeing and more, and discover the benefits of the natural world and the value of connecting with others in the outdoors. Their new Trails Initiative is designed to increase the frequency of trail hiking, and teach and inspire girls to understand, appreciate, and protect nature. In addition they will partner with REI to provide a PEAK presentation to participants so they are better prepared to care for the areas they are exploring. The Trails Initiative will combine trail hiking with the REI PEAK program to give girls a comprehensive recreation and conservation experience that will hopefully last a lifetime. Funds from REI will provide backpacks, first aid kits, compasses, guide books and other supplies to make a complete discovery backpack for use by each participating troop.

• Sonoma County Trails Council
• Santa Rosa, CA $9,436
• The goal of the Sonoma County Trails Council's Trail Stewardship Program is to restore and enhance riparian and other habitat through trail workdays, maintenance, construction and leadership workshops on trails throughout Sonoma County public lands. The program will reduce and mitigate impact of park users on riparian and other habitats and advance outstanding trail stewardship practices throughout Sonoma County. In particular, the program aims to reduce erosion and the resultant levels of silt in streams in State and Regional Parks through education and trail stewardship focusing on restoration and enhancement; the work will also improve trail users' experience. REI's grant will support the Trails Council's efforts to increase public awareness and effectiveness of this program by improvement of promotional and outreach materials as well as production of new outreach materials. Grant funds will also support the development of an online interactive county-wide map of project regions to help crew leaders locate and prioritize projects, and to track the status of trails projects. These funds will enable the Trails Council to reach the greatest possible audience.