Welcome from Friends of Big Bend National Park!

National Park Foundation Challenge Grant Within Reach!!
We are pleased to announce that we are less than $5000 away from reaching our challenge grant amount of $275,000.  Once we reach that level, the National Park Foundation will award us an additional $100,000 for the Fossil Discovery Trail.  This exciting exhibit is on its way to becoming a reality.  The first public hearing on the exhibit is schedule for May 2, 2013 and details on the hearing can be accessed here.

You can make a donation to this exhibit and help us finish our challenge grant today by clicking this link.

Boquillas is Open!
Pack your passport the next time you head to Big Bend National Park because the long-awaited Boquillas Port of Entry is now open for business.  Visitors can take a rowboat or simply wade across the Rio Grande before taking the short walk into the small Mexican town of Boquillas.  Small restaurants and bars as well as crafters and artists await you on the other side.  A passport is required for return entry into the United States.

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Thank you to the Meta Alice Keith Bratten Foundation!

Our thanks to the Bratten Foundation for their gift of $10,000 to the Fossil Discovery Trail campaign.  The Foundation has also pledged to make additional gifts in 2013 and 2014, ensuring contributions to this important exhibit for years to come.  This gift puts us over $200,000 raised toward this exhibit and well on our way to a matching grant from the National Park Foundation! 

Thank you James “Buddy” Davidson Charitable Trust!
Our thanks to the James “Buddy” Davidson Charitable Trust for their $15,000 grant to the Fossil Discovery Trail campaign.  That brings us to almost $200,000 raised for this fantastic new exhibit.  We are also pleased to announce a potential matching grant from the National Park Foundation of $100,000.  Any gifts you make to this fund will help us meet this match.

 

Reliant
Want to help Big Bend National Park and offset your carbon footprint at the same time? Reliant Energy and EarthShare of Texas have launched The Reliant EcoShareSM, a program that allows Reliant customers to support EarthShare of Texas and its participating organizations and help reduce the customers’ carbon footprints through the purchase of carbon offsets.

Here’s how it works: The Reliant EcoShareSM program gives customers the option of two pricing levels:

  • For a flat monthly cost of $3.95, a $1 donation is made each month to EarthShare of Texas, and 500 pounds of carbon offsets are purchased.
  • Or for a flat monthly cost of $5.95, a $2 donation is made each month to EarthShare of Texas, and 1,000 pounds of carbon offsets are purchased.

Friends of Big Bend benefits, because as one of EarthShare of Texas’ participating organizations, a portion of the Reliantdonation is shared with us.

Carbon offsets for the Reliant EcoShareSM program meet approved standards to ensure that they represent real, verifiable reductions in greenhouse gases.  Our thanks to Reliant for creating a program that provides benefits for the Texas environment!

GoodSearch
Are you on the internet every day?  If so, you can help Friends of Big Bend National Park while you are doing internet searches or internet shopping.

Friends of Big Bend National Park earns a penny every time you searched the Internet from the GoodSearch website.  GoodSearch.com is a Yahoo-powered search engine that donates half its advertising revenue, about a penny per search, to the charities its users designate.  Use it just as you would any search engine, get quality search results from Yahoo and help Big Bend National Park while you do it!  Just go to www.goodsearch.com and enter Friends of Big Bend as the charity you want to support!