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Trail Love - Give Back Fundraiser
by Nancy Ouimet, Executive Director

 

 

We have a simple organization; two things keep us alive, and keep the heart of what we do beating.

The first is you, our volunteers. We exist to create opportunities for you to give back to the trails you love, and build new trails like Razor’s Edge or snowshoe trails in Sawmill. But without you coming out to do the work, nothing gets done. We owe all of our volunteers a huge round of thanks.

Part of the way we express our gratitude is through our annual Volunteer Appreciation night, which was held at MEC on October 25th this year. In addition to pizza (who doesn’t like pizza!), attendees got a special discount on their purchases that evening as MEC’s way of saying “thanks”. Other companies donated door prizes, including Alpine Helicopters, Canmore Cave Tours, Canmore Nordic Centre, MapTown, Patagonia Calgary/Banff, Good Earth Coffehouse, Mountain Equipment Coop, and Rocky Mountain Books. These businesses, too, understand the effort our volunteers put in and want to thank you as well.

The Board takes supporting our volunteers seriously. A review of how we have been doing that has resulted in the conclusion that we could – and should – be doing it better. A new Board subcommittee will be looking at all aspects of volunteer management and appreciation, because it goes beyond just recognition events. Our volunteers are one of two life bloods of the organization; the “veins,” if you will, bringing back the results of the efforts we do.

The “arteries” of our organization is money. Money goes out to create the opportunities and fund the projects that the volunteers can work on. It goes out to deliver education opportunities like our speaker series and the platform on which we host our newsletter. It goes out in funding time spent in planning sessions where we work to create long-term trail care opportunities with Parks and Public Lands. It goes out to build training programs for our Crew Leaders. It goes out in acquiring the tools and equipment to do the work we need to do, and to pay for their maintenance and upkeep. It goes out to help us recognize the volunteers that come out to help.

The majority of the funding we get is through granting, but a critical, smaller part is through direct donations. People stand in awe about how small and efficient our organization is, and what we can deliver for the small amount of funds we raise. And fundraise we must. We are a registered non-profit charity that has but 1 employee (plus one part time summer assistant). Everyone else running this organization is a volunteer. Without direct donations of unrestricted funds, we don’t exist.

And so, at this time of year, we put out a modest hand. We can demonstrate what we do with what you and others give us, and we think it’s pretty impressive bang for your buck. We ask that you consider making a donation, and if you want to help us even more, spread our story to others you know who use trails in Kananaskis. The latest data says K-Country gets ~6,000,000 visitors a year. Just a penny from each of them would give us six times what we’re looking for.

Help us keep the heart of our organization beating. 

A train of bears


Lynx have VERY big feet.


A wolf pack in the Wind Valley


An east Kananaskis wolf working on dinner.


Wish this guy had an e-mail address so we could send him his selfie.


My, what big claws you have.


Everything's prettier with a dusting of snow.


Someone needs to go to the hairdresser.


Not something you want to run into on the trail.