Awards and Charitable Donations Committee

One of the new developments that came out of this year is the CMNA’s ‘Awards and Charitable Donations Committee’.
What is this you ask?
Here’s some background. Several months ago, we solicited feedback from members about altering how exactly our donations funds can be used.

Historically, we have been able to support our mission of using these funds to connect youth to outdoor opportunities by providing scholarships to kids attending outdoor programs or camps. In a post-Covid world, those opportunities were greatly affected and we were left to reimagine how to best use our donations to support this mission. Enter, the “Awards and Charitable Donations Committee” or as we are more fondly known amongst Board Members, the ACDC (no affiliation to the other AC/DC).

The goal of the ACDC?
Connect our donations to learning opportunities that ultimately get youth outside or otherwise engaged in conservation. Surprisingly, this can be a little tricky and requires some creativity. Thankfully, we have some dedicated folks that have stepped up to volunteer their time to this cause, and I’d like to give them a shoutout: Dianne Kincaid, Elise DuBois, Amy Evans, and Jennifer Kline.

With that background in mind, I’d like to share some updates from the ACDC. Our first opportunity this year came with The Hope Summit, where we funded two students/early career professionals to attend and kickstart their careers by networking with conservation organizations at the Summit. Our two other upcoming opportunities are still being ironed out, but I can share our progress. The first opportunity is to reinstate scholarships for students to attend the Junior Naturalist program run through Charleston County Parks and Recreation Commission. While this is something we have done in the past, we do have to work through the details of where this programming would occur and exactly how many students we could support. The second is with the Center for Birds of Prey located in Awendaw. Their education staff regularly host school programs, but not all schools can afford this opportunity. Which is where we would come in. The idea is to pay for programming with classes of 3rd-5th graders in select Dorchester County schools. Why Dorchester? The Center frequently receives calls and injured birds from this area, but they do not have many of those schools involved in their education programs. This partnership would extend the Center’s outreach in that area as well as teach kids about their conservation efforts–and get to see live birds!

Our final task of this year was to start outreach to CMNA members. Sometimes it helps to get a reminder that we are a 501(c) 3 non-profit and are able to accept donations to support opportunities like those above. We designed a flyer as a reminder to be featured in this newsletter and via email blast. This will direct you to the page on our website where you can make a tax-deductible donation. Any donation will help us reach more students and we thank everyone who has already helped support these efforts!!

Donate Now

If you have questions, comments or concerns about the Awards and Charitable Donations Committee, feel free to reach out on our website to get connected with us!