Trail Ambassador Program Receives National Forest Foundation Grant
In March, as spring arrived and the Worm full moon hung large in the sky, Friends of the Inyo received the exciting news that our National Forest Foundation (NFF) grant application to help fund our Trail Ambassador program was successful!
This $47,000 grant is a huge boon to our ability to staff the Inyo, Humboldt-Toiyabe, and Sierra National Forest lands in the Eastern Sierra with five Trail Ambassadors this season. In addition to myself and Lindsay Butcher, we are going to be able to hire three additional staff members to provide additional coverage across our working area. The NFF’s support will make up nearly half of our stewardship budget for the summer, and so goes a tremendous way to making our lofty stewardship goals a reality.
A huge thank you goes out to Inyo, Humboldt-Toiyabe, and Sierra NF’s staffs for coordinating with us and supporting our grant application. With their help, we were able to come up with great project detail for work on our public lands for this summer. This deep information no doubt went a long way toward securing this large grant.
Another huge source of support has been you! That’s right, our members and supporters have shown that they care about our Trail Ambassador program in a huge way. I learned that just the other day, we eclipsed $10,000 in donations for our Q1 appeal, which in turn triggered our $10,000 board member match. The donations keep coming in, and we cannot thank you enough. We are humbled by your support and excited to do some amazing work this summer.