A Spectacular Evening 50 Years in the Making
Our 50th anniversary celebration - An Evening Outside with NatureBridge - was a momentous success and we are happy to be able to share some of the awesome highlights of this truly unforgettable evening with you! Our guests loved being on our Golden Gate campus, getting a firsthand glimpse of what it's like to be a NatureBridge student. They sat around our campfire, explored our dorms (and learned about the famous Golden Pinecone!), sampled cuisine from celebrated Bay Area chefs, and participated in educator-led activities and tours. During dinner, Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant and student alumni Selma Ruiz both inspired and invigorated our 400+ guests.
We highly recommend you check out Selma's moving speech on the impact NatureBridge has on her life:
In total, sponsors and donors contributed over $915,000 to ensure that there will be more Selma's - more students from around the country who are inspired by NatureBridge to put their passion for the environment into action to protect it.
On behalf of all of us at NatureBridge, thank you for being part of this 50 year journey. We're just getting started!
Stories
Fall Reflections from NatureBridge Yosemite
As an environmental science educator, I spend a lot of time teaching about nature, but this season I’ve been finding that as it turns out, nature has a lot to teach us, too. Sometimes I can let the trees, the meadow, and the lichen teach for me. They show us how to respect each other’s boundaries, how to celebrate differences, how to work together, and how to lean on each other’s strengths in order to exist in a new place. These lessons felt incredibly relevant to me heading into the first week of November, a notoriously busy time at NatureBridge Yosemite. I wanted to focus on messages of kindness and inclusivity with my students, I wanted them to feel a sense of belonging in this new space, and I also hoped that they would share those messages with others.
An Incredible 10th Anniversary of Evening on the Lake
On October 25, the Amazon Meeting Center in downtown Seattle buzzed with celebratory energy as over 300 NatureBridge guests and supporters gathered for the 10th anniversary of "Evening on the Lake," our signature Pacific Northwest fundraising event for our Olympic campus.
"Science became fun" at NatureBridge for Alum Laura Lomeli Russert
Laura Lomeli Russert is a NatureBridge alum who grew up in Groveland, CA and now calls Washington, D.C. home. Laura’s journey with NatureBridge began when she attended the Golden Gate campus as a young student with her class from Tenaya Elementary. Laura credits NatureBridge with shaping not only her love for nature but also her passion for education and science. "Science became fun,” she recalls. “You weren’t learning from a textbook anymore, and it became so much more real." Her hands-on, scientific experiences at NatureBridge laid the foundation for her eventual pursuit of a Ph.D. in psychology. “I feel like I owe a lot to NatureBridge."