Our Most Important Work

This summer, the Simon Lake BioBlitz brought fifty people together to catalogue the biodiversity of prairie life on land managed as the Sheep Berry Fen Preserve and on adjacent land managed by a grass-fed cattle farmer. Altogether, the volunteers noted numerous key plant/animal species catalogued to track changes in the prairie ecosystem as they emerge from both land management systems.

On a warm July morning, the prairie bursts with the excited voices of children.  Even shy kids can’t hold back.  Little explorers, scientists, poets and artists vie for the attention of teachers and mentors while the adults, still kids at heart, are just as excited about this day’s adventure.  A new world lives all around them, as green rolling prairie spreads in all directions.  On this journey of discovery, a new generation of conservationists is born, taught by patient elders to value and protect the rare landscape found right beneath their feet.  This was the Simon Lake BioBlitz. 

Introducing the next generation to conservation is Our Most Important Work.

We never want to become a pest, the invasive species in your life, but we need your help – money to do this work.   While we have been lucky to have ongoing support for our major programs, money to connect with young kids and high school and college students is harder to come by – and the 2014-2015 program year is just starting!

Your September donation of $30 will help us carry on Our Most Important Work, because not having the financial resources to reach out to young people, to get them to unplug now and then, would end a CURE tradition that has brought hundreds of youth to value stewardship and join the conservation movement.

Putting your money to good use, we will continue CURE’s tradition of introducing our youngest to a world of bugs, bass, and beavers; of challenging high school kids to write essays in the Aldo Leopold tradition; of training college students to lead conservation work as advocates and organizers and of providing early work experience through summer internships at CURE.

No contribution is too small.

Gneiss SNA Outcrop Hike, Summer 2013

$30 sponsors a child for a year and covers your individual membership for a year.

If you are not already a member, a good way to connect kids to nature is to join our organization with a Family Membership of $45, which will link you and your family to our programs and events, like the Simon Lake BioBlitz.

And if you can afford a larger contribution to support Our Most Important Work, you should know that members who donate to CURE year after year give, on average, $100 annually.

**All membership renewals will add one full year to your membership.  And during September, all renewals, new memberships, and donations of any size will be listed as sponsors of CURE’s Most Important Work.

Finally, something we cannot say often enough is Thank You.  Thank You for coming out to CURE events. Thank You for volunteering throughout the year. Thank You for saying good things about our work.  And Thank You, especially, for your financial support – the money we need to do Our Most Important Work.