Yes, That’s a Wrap! Our Board of Directors, led by Erin McCain Anderson, worked with Ilana and Boundary’s kitchen to present a tasty Breakfast Burrito Bar! Thank you to our supporters in the community who came out for our 3rd Annual Breakfast of Champions! fundraiser at Boundary Bay Brewery and our to additional sponsors at the Alcoa Foundation to help make it possible.

We met our fundraising goal of $5,000 for the event thank to the generous support of our sponsors, volunteers, raffle contributors and on-site donors. This was the kickoff of our end of year campaign to lay a solid foundation for the year to come. Our end of year goal is $12,000 so we still have a ways to go. 

If you missed the event, we had a packed house enjoying a warm meal, lively conversations and meeting new folks too. The following is a recap or you can just jump to the punch and support Recreation Northwest with your charitable donation. Thank you.Yes, it’s a little fuzzy at 7:00am, but these dedicated folks came out to support the valuable work we provide our community. Thank you to our Board for filling the room with quality people and volunteers for taking care of everybody. We had many familiar faces and also made a bunch of new friends. 

We also had our fun Outdoor Recreation CHAMPION photo booth set up for people to get together and get goofy. Here’s the Gear Aid crew, including our Board President Brian Roche! Check out the complete album on Facebook.com/RecreationNW

Here’s our Board of Directors and yours truly in the middle. Serious & Fun! 

Check out the complete album on Facebook.com/RecreationNW

After the meal, I addressed the room and gave thanks to all who made it possible. I also took the time to cover the successes we’ve had over the past 6 years, details on the accomplishments of 2018 and opportunities that we have presenting themselves in the year ahead in 2019. Please see below 2018 Recreation Northwest Year in Review and Planning the Year Ahead to hear the opportunities we have to continue to have a positive impact on our community. 

My modest monolouge was followed by Dean Fearing, our past President and current Executive Director of Kulshan Community Land Trust. Dean shared his personal connection to our board as a founding member and how our work continues to influence his life and that of his daughter Scarlett as they enjoy our boardwalk in Fairhaven Park and exploring other parks with WhatcomParkFinder.org. Dean offered a sincere request, asking people to donate to Recreation Northwest and the work we have planned ahead. He encouraged people to make a stretch gift, pledging more than they initially expected to give. 

On behalf of our community, the Board of Directors and myself personally. We thank you for your support. 

After “the Ask” board members, Krissy Moehl and Erin McCain Anderson drew the lucky winners in our Breakfast of Champions Raffle. 

Thank you to the local businesses that donated goods and services to help us create cool packages: 

Fairhaven Fun: Ovn and Chrysalis Inn Massage

Get After It: Fairhaven Runners & Walkers, Pacific MultiSport, Nuu-Muu and Whatcom Family YMCA

Get Out There: American Alpine Institute, Yeager’s Sporting Goods, Trailhead Athletics, Prime Sports Institute and Ortlieb

Get to know Bellingham: Square One Maps, Gear Aid and Bija Chocolates

Stay-cation: Aslan Brewery and Moondance Sea Kayak Adventures

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2018 Recreation Northwest Year in Review and Planning the Year Ahead

We celebrate our success over the past 6 years and are looking forward to the year ahead for our upcoming events and program expansion in 2019. I am confident that you will find the value that we are bringing to the community, while we fulfill our mission of promoting outdoor recreation and bringing people together to enjoy, preserve and improve the places where we play.

We have found a new home for the Bellingham Traverse as it moves into the 18th year. Marc Blake of Pacific Multi-sports will be the new owner and manager. This move will enable this iconic Bellingham event to mature and thrive into the future. You can read all about it on The Confluence.

Recreation Northwest has taken on the valuable work of the Stewardship of Fairhaven Park, our Recreation Economy advocacy and popular Parkscriptions program. These three programs deserve our attention and will have our focus in the years to ahead as I will outline below in bold. 

As Stewards of Fairhaven Park, people in the community have been asking us for directional trail signs to be installed. This will help them navigate through the trails in Fairhaven Park and connect with the Interurban and Chuckanut Drive on either side. We are willing partners to tackle this problem together for the public benefit. For details on the 2019 Fairhaven Park Directional Signs Trail project, read The Confluence.

Our Recreation Economy advocacy revolves around the work we do to bring the outdoor recreation community together to learn from each other, raise the profile of this key sector of our economy and advocate for the value of outdoor recreation and our public lands at the state and local level. More information is available on our Recreation Economy page. 

Mark your calendars for our Free Public Recreation Northwest Expo on Saturday, February 23rd, 2019 in Fairhaven. 

For those of you in the crowd who work directly in the industry, mark your calendars for our Washington Outdoor Summit hosted at Bellingham Technical College on Tuesday, March 20th. 

Parkscriptions is a program we have been developing over the past 2 years, led by former co-director April Claxton. Her work in getting this program off the ground garnered a warm round of applause from the crowd. She gets the well-deserved credit for the solid foundation of the program. You can now find her at the Ocean Conservancy. 

Launching our pilot program for Parkscriptions throughout Whatcom County witnessed growing success. In 2017, we had 5 health care providers in our trial run. In 2018, we increased our engagement to 40 providers to help us develop the program to offer providers the resources and tools necessary to prescribe time and activity outdoors for people in our community who need it most- those suffering from mental and physical maladies. The total from our monitoring team was for tracking was 1,ooo Parkscriptions written.

Square One Maps also recently completed adding newer GPS data to complete the list of public parks and open space with information from such federal, state and local agencies as the National Park Service, US Forest Service, Department of Natural Resources, Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife and Whatcom Land Trust. This adds to the list of local city and county parks already listed. Give yourself a Parkscription today at WhatcomParkFinder.org. 

As we move into 2019, we have secured partial funding to help us launch a Public Health campaign to encourage the public and health care providers in Whatcom County to use our tool- WhatcomParkFinder.org to get outside to enjoy the benefits of nature in our local parks. The campaign will highlight the Call to Action for people to “ASK YOUR DOCTOR WHAT PARK IS RIGHT FOR YOU”. 

 

We are looking to the business community and individual donors to help create a more Healthy Whatcom. With your support we can achieve great things. Business owners, please review our  Parkscriptions Program Sponsorship (PDF) levels and offer what you can to help us meet our goals in the coming year.

You may also be interested in sponsoring our Whatcom Parkscriptions Day on Sunday, April 28th, 2019.
Details here. 

We are also hosting a Giving Tuesday (11/27/18) event as a Parkscriptions fundraiser:
A Walk in the Park – a Parkscription event Tuesday, November 27th

As we celebrate our Successes in 2018, we look to the future and realize we have some lofty goals. With your help, these objectives are attainable. Thank you for your time and support. You may also simply donate directly.

Sincerely,