As we wind down to Thanksgiving and look back on this challenging year, feelings of gratitude well up. 

We are grateful most of all for the health of our team at the Water Education Foundation. And we are especially grateful for those who supported us along the way, allowing our talented team to pivot in-person educational opportunities about California’s most precious natural resource into virtual experiences.

Indeed, we persevered as we also mourn the loss of 14 percent of fellow nonprofits across the state that shut their doors for good. And yet, it’s still been a tough year for us and many nonprofits that are working to enrich the fabric of California for its residents.

If you find our programs valuable, please consider supporting our mission: To inspire understanding of water and catalyze critical conversations to build bridges and inform collaborative decision-making.

This past year, our small but mighty team: 

• Traveled across California’s mountains and valleys to produce five virtual journeys of key watersheds across the state.
• Created special water-related newsfeeds and online resource pages for the two news stories that dominated the headlines in the first half of 2020: COVID-19 and equity issues. 
• Led an amazing group of 23 up-and-coming water leaders who are working to help California solve the challenge of managing water resources in light of climate change. Stay tuned for their recommendations in a soon-to-be published report!
• Produced a handbook on issues faced by disadvantaged communities and their efforts to obtain clean, reliable and affordable water, along with best practices so others can help. 
• Organized 42 Project WET workshops (31 of them virtually), teaching 732 educators across the state how to bring water lessons into K-12 classrooms. They, in turn, will reach 101,938 students in the academic year.
• Updated two new Laypersons Guides – the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and Water Rights Law.
• Produced 12 original news articles on hot water topics for our Western Water News.

All this and we also had some fun by launching an Instagram page and hosting a water trivia night simultaneously on Twitter and Facebook. We will probably use just one platform next time. ;)

If you feel our programs are valuable, please donate to help our mission endure.

We would be beyond grateful!

Wishing everyone has a safe and healthy holiday season!