We just approved $150,000 in grant funds to maintain restoration gains on the Dolores, Escalante, Gila, and Verde Rivers this year! These are the first grants awarded from the growing 4Rivers Fund, generously seeded with $1 Million from the Walton Family Foundation. They will support four of our nonprofit partners — RiversEdge West, Grand Staircase Escalante Partners, Gila Watershed Partnership, and Friends of the Verde River — as they continue important riverside habitat work to benefit people and wildlife.
We are thrilled to announce that once again, Carlson Vineyards and Derek DeYoung Studios are partnering to support healthy rivers. When you purchase a bottle of red or white vintage wine blends that is paired with custom fly fishing art, the proceeds will fuel the Our Rivers campaign, which is working to connect communities to rivers by removing barriers such as racism and socio-economic challenges. Thank you, Carlson Vineyards and Derek DeYoung for designing a delightful wine and for giving back to make this important work happen.
Give Us a Listen!
The second episode of the Our Rivers podcast features Collin Ewing, National Conservation Area manager for the Bureau of Land Management about what it means to recreate responsibly on some of Colorado’s most breathtaking and family-friendly rivers.
Forever Our Rivers is building a legacy fund for the Escalante, Gila, Verde and Dolores Rivers, four important tributaries to the mighty Colorado River. We will leverage an initial $1 million contribution from the Walton Family Foundation to create a $6 million endowment, the 4Rivers Fund, through strategic investments over the next four years.
We will distribute grants as the fund builds, helping our partners working on these rivers to grow and maintain healthy instream and riverside ecosystems, and to use sound science to make the best decisions for healthy rivers for years to come.
Hit reply now to talk with our Executive Director, Joe, about your options to contribute to the 4Rivers Fund or learn more here.
Save Rivers with SOL
The Our Rivers fund is growing thanks to SOL Paddle Boards. They have invested to improve access to healthy rivers among communities of color and underserved communities, including people with disabilities, women, and lower-income neighborhoods.
Our partners at California Trout are hosting the Wild & Scenic Film Festival (virtually). The films consist of short and feature-length films from all corners of the globe. All proceeds benefit CalTrout and their work to ensure resilient populations of wild fish in healthy waters for a better California.
Purchase tickets here. Live screening opens March 4 at 6:30 p.m. PST, films on demand through midnight March 11
Join Forever Our Rivers, Carlson Vineyards, Sarabella Fishing, Map the Xperience, SOL Paddle Boards and others to raise $100,000 for nonprofits working to create equitable access to clean rivers. It will fund projects in underserved communities and communities of color, and those that center women and people with disabilities. Everyone deserves clean water and healthy, unpolluted rivers.
The Our Rivers podcast will feature the people making a difference on healthy rivers.In our first episode we hear from two Forever Our Rivers grantees, Brown Folks Fishing and Casting For Recovery, as they partner on the Angling for All Pledge to address racism and inequality in the fishing industry. Thank you to our sponsor, Carlson Vineyards.
Despite the challenges of this year and this holiday season, we are filled with gratitude for wild spaces, the rivers that sustain them, and the people working to help them thrive.
So many of us turned to the natural world for solace in 2020, making it a point to get our toes muddy, cast a line, or just sit and watch the current run by the banks of our favorite local river. These moments reminded us how important healthy waterways are to every aspect of our well-being and renewed our commitment to help communities across the Southwest connect to their rivers. We’re planning an exciting 2021 campaign to expand our efforts, recruit more leaders from underserved communities, and help more corporate partners target and amplify their environmental giving to rivers. We’ll tell you about it in January.
Our 2020 Grantees and current River Partners are working hard to connect women, black, indigenous and people of color to rivers nationwide. We also focused on introducing kids to rivers in the Southwest while engaging communities to protect their rivers in Colorado and Arizona.
Our Corporate Partners continue to amaze us with their creativity, generosity, and determination to support these innovative projects in a hard year.
Our grantees include: Brown Folks Fishing, Csting for Recovery, Colorado West Land Trust, Four Corners Water Center, Friends of Youth & Nature, Institute for Environmental Solutions, Purgatoire Watershed Partnership, Roaring Fork Conservancy, San Juan Citizens Alliance, and River Science. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram to get the latest on how our grantees are doing!
We’re wishing you a happy and healthy holiday! We hope you can carve out some time to sit by your favorite river.
Forever Our Rivers Foundation is proud to announce that we awarded $25,000 in grants to organizations that are connecting people to southwest rivers! The grant cycle was made possible by our generous Corporate Partners. Organizations that received funding include: Brown Folks Fishing, Casting for Recovery, Colorado West Land Trust, Four Corners Water Center at Fort Lewis College, Friends of Youth & Nature, Institute for Environmental Solutions, Purgatoire Watershed Partnership, Roaring Fork Conservancy, San Juan Citizens Alliance and River Science. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram to get the latest on how our grantees are doing!
Fish Don’t Live in Ugly Places
In a new podcast series, Forever Our Rivers has been talking with community business partners and learning their tips and stories for managing the new world of COVID-19. In the podcast series you’ll hear how maps are becoming masks, listen to a story of adapting to the new work place, be reminded of the therapeutic benefits of fishing, and learn about the interesting intersection between beer and rivers. Thank you to Map the Xperience, Mayfly Outdoors, SaraBella Fishing and Gilded Goat Brewery for spending your time with us!
Drink great wine and support healthy rivers. Click here to purchase.
Photo by Cailin Portra at Trout Unlimited Gala
Carlson Vineyards and DeYoung Studio have combined fine art with fine wine. When you purchase a Forever Our Rivers Red or White you help support our Community River Grants program. The wine-art partnership presents a win-win opportunity for you to support healthy rivers from your home! Forever Our Rivers White is a blend of Riesling, Vidal Blanc, and Chardonnay and Forever Our Rivers Red is a blend of Lemberger and Petite Sirah. Wines can be purchased for delivery through Carlson Vineyard’s website at by clicking here and you can see more of Derek DeYoung’s amazing work here.
Community River Grant Cycle
We invite our River Health Partners to apply for grants of up to $5,000 to fund projects in the American southwest. Grant priorities range from habitat restoration to connecting communities to their rivers.
Our network of generous corporate partners made this funding cycle possible. Look for our logo on company websites and products, to support future grant cycles.
Only River Health Partners are eligible to apply for Community River Grants. Please review our grant guidelines to determine eligibility and then email Joe Neuhof at [email protected] to complete a partnership agreement.
The deadline for applications is May 15th. We will make selections in June.
