20 for 20!

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Our goal is to raise $20,000 dollars and 300 new members for our 20th Anniversary Campaign!  Help us reach our goals!

Click here for a history of ARA’s successes, a timeline of our history and a video of the past 20 years of defending rivers. You’re sure to see some familiar faces – maybe even yours!

Twenty-five years ago, a group of Alabama citizens and local environmental organizations came together and formed the Alabama State Rivers Coalition.  Their purpose was to protect, maintain and improve the quality of Alabama’s rivers, streams and wetlands.  They had five stated goals:

  1. To encourage and facilitate communication between individuals and organizations working to this end
  2. To foster the establishment of more local and regional river conservation organizations throughout the state
  3. To increase the effectiveness of participating organizations
  4. To develop a framework of cooperation between participating individuals, organizations and agencies on select matters of regional or statewide significance
  5. To build broad public support for the coalition and its mission.

This visionary effort evolved into the formation of an independent statewide river protection organization called the Alabama Rivers Alliance in 1997 and we have been going strong trying to achieve these same goals — and even more –for the past 20 years.

As we celebrate our 20th anniversary, we are asking you to help us build our organizational capacity to enable us to continue growing this movement and protecting clean water and healthy rivers for the next 20 years.

Our goal is to raise $20,000 dollars for our 20th Anniversary Campaign!

To help us achieve this goal, one of our long-time foundation partners, the Curtis and Edith Munson Foundation, has given us a $20,000 challenge grant.  That means each dollar you donate is DOUBLED in value! 

Please donate today to help us meet our $20,000 match for our 20th Anniversary Campaign!

Protecting clean water is, as we all know, a never-ending job.  Our rivers and streams face new threats each day and even old threats return from time to time.  Having a strong, sustained movement across Alabama is as important today as it was 20 years ago and strengthening the role of individuals and local groups is still the centerpiece of our mission.

That’s why we are giving you more than one way to help with this important campaign!  We always need your financial support to help us achieve our goals, but we also need your help growing our membership and therefore — our outreach.

Here are two other ways you can help us achieve success in our 20th Anniversary Campaign:

  1. Recruit two (2) of your friends who also care about protecting Alabama’s waters to become NEW members of the Alabama Rivers Alliance (We have a special introductory $20 anniversary membership rate!) You can send them directly to our website at AlabamaRivers.org/20for20 for them to easily join! (That’s this page!)
  2. Make sure you are following us on social media and share our posts across platforms to help us get more followers on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Social media is the most cost effective way to spread our message, get others involved in our important action alerts and to help others keep up with what is happening in the world of river protection.

Clean water and the health of our rivers is still too often taken for granted by people in this state, especially those that have the most power to protect them.  

Since our beginnings in 1997, we have worked hard to address threats to our rivers in various ways through advocacy at the state level, by building relationships with government agencies and holding them responsible for protecting clean water.  In recent years, we have also begun working with partners to have a stronger presence in the Alabama Legislature, where important decisions that impact our rivers and streams are ultimately made.

Today, there are more than 50 local community and watershed based groups partnering across Alabama to protect, educate and recreate in our amazing and beautiful rivers and streams.  Since our very first day, we have helped connect and strengthen these groups to be more effective advocates and to collaborate where possible on regional and statewide issues.

Our Alabama Water Rally conference, the premier event that brings together river defenders from across the state, has grown from around 70 people in the early years to about 200 attendees in 2017.   Each year we are surprised by the new, excited faces as well as the devoted familiar faces that come to this event to engage with others, learn about emerging issues, and build strong and lasting relationships.  

Whether it is advocating for better notifications about E. coli in our waterways or working for long-term proactive changes like an Alabama Water Plan, saving rivers saves lives! 

Please help us succeed into the next 20 years by giving to our 20th Anniversary Campaign in all the ways that you are able!

Water is life,

 

 

Cindy Lowry

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