Recycled Fish Gains Highly Competitive Grant Funding
OutdoorHub 05.30.12
Recycled Fish, the non-profit organization of anglers living a “lifestyle of stewardship both on and off the water,” has received a Grassroots Grant from the BoatU.S. Foundation for Boating Safety & Clean Water. The highly competitive, annual grant program is designed to help nonprofit groups, associations, organizations and other waterway users to help spread the message about safe and clean boating practices at the grass roots level.
This year the grant program attracted over 70 applications from around the country and Recycled Fish was one of only 8 that received funding. The organization will use the funds for the One Million Stewards: Clean Waters Coast to Coast program.
“Working with boating nonprofits like this enables us to focus on issues specific to local waterways,” said Alanna Keating, Grant Coordinator for the BoatU.S. Foundation. “We rely on enthusiastic volunteers like these to help expand our reach.”
The One Million Stewards program includes a waterway cleanup bag packaged with a booklet about everyday ways to live a “lifestyle of stewardship,” because our lifestyle runs downstream.
“The message is not that we do a periodic shoreline cleanup,” said Teeg Stouffer, Recycled Fish Executive Director. “It’s that we are a shoreline cleanup. We are stewards. Our waters are better off on account of us.”
After cleaning up – or carrying out any act of stewardship – stewards can report their good deeds for recognition and prizes at the Recycled Fish website.
The grant funds will go even further thanks to a match from the National Wildlife Federation’s Vanishing Paradise Campaign.
“We’re committed to landscape-level stewardship to restore the Mississippi Delta and reconnect the river to its wetlands,” said Land Tawney, Senior Manager for Sportsmen Leadership. “The message that we are all stewards is an important one, and we’re glad to be a part of this effort.”
