2025 Winter Update
The Kitsap Great Give is coming up next month, and we thought we’d just update you on how the current Our Forest Fund tree campaign is progressing.
At this moment, we have over $200,000 in our fund to save the remaining trees at Port Gamble Forest Heritage Park (PGFHP). That includes about $80,000 leftover from the original funds raised in the first tree campaign in 2022. Most of this recent $120,000 has come from many individual donors, ranging from ten dollars to several thousand at a time. (“From viewers like you” as PBS would say…)
The 2024 Kitsap Great Give and Mighty Cause netted the fund about $10,000 over the past year.
And we have most recently been awarded a $5,000 Appendix X grant from the Suquamish Tribe.
A Regular Drip-Drip of Tree Subscriptions
Some donors have set up a monthly recurring donation, which allows them to become some of our biggest donors painlessly. Perhaps they decided to forego one restaurant meal ($29) a month and put that money towards conserving forest, one tree at a time. Maybe they cancelled their landline and decided to just redirect the expense to saving trees. Perhaps they see it as a way to offset their own personal carbon baggage, saving trees which will contribute to cleaning the pollutants from their car or air travel. We really appreciate their quiet, persistent largess, whatever their reasons. Those tree subscriptions add up!
It’s Hasn’t Been All About the Money
Meanwhile, we have done outreach at the Poulsbo Farmer’s Market and at the Gamble Graveler. OFF organized tree-plantings in the ecologically-thinned areas of the 756 acres that were saved in 2022, with volunteers interplanting thousands of diverse native tree saplings to jumpstart a more resilient forest habitat for wildlife. Lynn and Mark Schorn held a benefit concert by Andrew Duhon to open the Phase 2 tree campaign, and also sponsored a mushrooming workshop to benefit Our Forest Fund.
Kim led a “tree walk” under the auspices of the Kitsap County Parks Department. And as a testament to how active and dedicated Kim is to Kitsap County Parks, she received the northend “Volunteer of the Year” award from them!
Most recently we participated in a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) event at Suquamish Elementary School, talking to children about the importance of trees and forests.
Next Steps
Our Forest Fund also just applied for a $750,000 Capital Budget Local and Community Project grant from the Washington State legislature. This is the same type of budget allocation which got Kitsap County $300,000 for Port Gamble trees in 2022. It is a tight year, and we got our application in just before the deadline, but we hope the legislature will give strong consideration to our project.
When we started out our Phase Two campaign for the trees in PGFHP, there were approximately 1200 acres of trees left to save. Now, thanks to more clearcuts by Rayonier, there are only about 1000 acres remaining. The longer it takes to raise this money, the fewer trees there will be left to buy. If we don’t raise the money to buy the timber rights, these thousand acres will be clearcut.
Kitsap Great Give Is Early This Year
Usually, the Kitsap Great Give rolls around in April, but this year the fateful day is Tuesday, March 11. Your donations will be boosted by Kitsap Community Foundation funds, which means you save more trees with every dollar you donate. We’ll remind you in a bit, if you are on our email list…
That’s all for now!