National Public Lands Day ~ Mountain Chicks Partnership

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We're excited for National Public Lands Day this Saturday, September 30th. We partnered with the Arizona Chapter of Mountain Chicks for the first ever Mountain Chicks Trail Cleanup! Please note registration is closed for this event, but we’ll be sharing pictures and videos soon so stay tuned!

We're taking a small group of Mountain Chicks along the Bell Trail, southeast of Sedona, to the "Crack" for a trash cleanup. We're hiking 3.5 miles in, picking up trash from the area, spending some time at the swimming hole, hanging out and getting to know each other, and then hiking the collected trash out 3.5 miles.

A few months ago, Nicole from NR was looking for inspiration from women who share her passion for getting outside and exploring the great outdoors. She joined a group on Facebook called Mountain Chicks to connect with other women who love hiking and the outdoors. Mountain Chicks was created to give women who hike more options. We are extremely proud to partner with such an amazing organization that shares our passion for the great outdoors!

Mountain Chicks is not just for women, "We want you to bring your friends, your guy friends, your furry friends, and whoever else is in your life, on adventures with us! No one owns the outdoors and we're not trying to, which means we're all inclusive!"

This is the first of many cleanup collaborations between Mountain Chicks and Natural Restorations, so make sure you join a chapter near you so you don’t miss out on the next one!

Photo by @Lena_Koop_Photography

Huppybar Discount for Natural Restorations

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We had the opportunity to try HuppyBar a few weeks ago at the Arizona Trail Day Celebration in Flagstaff and we cannot stop talking about how good they are, the clean ingredients used in each bar, and how much our Natural Restorations Community would love not only the bars, but the vision behind them. 

We are very excited to team up with our friends at Huppybar to bring you a Natural Restorations discount for 15% off your purchase with Huppybar when you use the code NR15 during checkout. You will also start to see Huppybars at some upcoming cleanup events. Click HERE to get yours today and support this amazing Flagstaff-based business. 

Did you know Huppybar makes the Official Energy Bar of the Arizona National Scenic Trail? Not only does the AZT Wild Mesquite Bar taste amazing, they use AZ-grown ingredients and the bars are grain, gluten, soy, and dairy free, contain no preservatives, refined sugars, or GMOs, and a portion of the proceeds from this bar will help maintain and protect the Arizona National Scenic Trail. 

5,420 Pounds of Trash Removed From the Coconino National Forest

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Our cleanup project along the Arizona Trail and the areas surrounding the trail on Sunday, September 10th, was a huge success!

52 volunteers, including 30 volunteers under the age of 18 years old, helped us remove 5,420 pounds of trash from the area.

That's 2.71 tons of trash is no longer littering our National Forest lands.

Click HERE to view pictures from the cleanup. 

Campfire Defender ~ Exclusive Natural Restorations Discount

We always bring our Campfire Defender with us when we go camping. 

We always bring our Campfire Defender with us when we go camping. 

In May, we attended the Overland Expo in Flagstaff, Arizona. We walked by the Campfire Defender display, immediately stopped in our tracks, & wanted to learn more. Triston gave us a demonstration of the product & we went on our way. We couldn't stop thinking about how many times we've been worried about our campfire when the wind picks up & how the Campfire Defender would put an end to worrying about potentially starting a forest fire. We went back & purchased one that day & it goes with us anytime we go camping to provide peace of mind. 

We are very excited to team up with Campfire Defender to bring you an exclusive Natural Restorations discount for 50% off your purchase with Campfire Defender when you use the code NaturalRestorations during checkout. 

 

7,040 Pounds of Trash Removed from Cinder Hills OHV Area

Our Dedicated Restorations Team removed 7,040 pounds of trash, including thousands of nails from illegal pallet fires burned on roads and trails, from the Cinder Hills OHV Are in #Flagstaff this summer. We're extremely proud of the work our team has accomplished since launching in February. Our Team has removed more than 59 tons of trash through projects funded by a grant from the OHV-Fund managed by Arizona State Park Board. 

Including volunteer events, we have removed more than 114 tons of trash in 2017, that's more than 228,000 pounds of trash no longer littering outdoor recreation & wilderness areas across our state! Thank you so much to every who volunteers with us & supports our mission! 

We have a lot of great volunteer opportunities coming up, check out our Events Calendar. 

9/10/17 Trash Cleanup Along the Arizona Trail Behind Mary's Caf in Flagstaff - 9AM to Noon

9/23/17 Cinder Hills OHV Area Trash Cleanu in Flagstaff - 9AM to 1PM

10/21/17 Lower Sycamore Cleanu - 8AM to Noon

11/24/17 Green Friday Salt River Cleanu - 8AM to Noon

Letters of Support ~ We Need Your Help!

This month, we are applying for another grant from the Off-Highway Vehicle (OHV) Fund managed by Arizona State Parks Board to continue removing trash & graffiti from OHV areas across the state in 2018, including new project sites.

We are gathering letters of support to show a need for our projects and we need your help. If you agree there is a need for our trash & graffiti removal projects in OHV areas, we would greatly appreciate it if you would write a brief letter of support we can include in our application.

We want the letter to be in your own words; the text blow is an example of what you could write about:

I am writing this letter in support of the Natural Restorations and their trash and graffiti removal projects in OHV areas across Arizona.

I am a member of the OHV community, recreate and utilize OHV areas, and see a huge need for cleanups in OHV areas.

I have volunteered with Natural Restorations and will continue to volunteer with them in the future.

If you are unable to sign the letter, please include a phone number and/or email address with your name & it will serve as your signature. You can address letters to AZ State Parks OHV Grant Committee. If you’re a member of an OHV group or outdoor recreation group, your Board of Directors can submit a letter of support. If your organization has volunteered with us, we’d love to hear from you too.

Letters can be emailed to contact@naturalrestorations.org by Tuesday, August 29th, 2017 to be included in our proposal.

Thank you so much for your support, we look forward to increasing our impact in 2018!

Thank You Sprouts Farmer's Market in Flagstaff

Our Dedicated Restoration Team enjoying lunches and snacks provided by Sprouts in Flagstaff

Our Dedicated Restoration Team enjoying lunches and snacks provided by Sprouts in Flagstaff

We would like to give a Grand Canyon size THANK YOU to Ernie and his team at the Sprouts Farmer's Market in Flagstaff, Arizona for sponsoring our Dedicated Restoration Team lunches and snacks June 19th through June 23rd while our team was hard at work removing trash from the Cinder Hills OHV Area in Flagstaff. 

Ernie and his awesome team have been involved with our restorations since our first cleanup event in June 2015. They always make sure our volunteers and team have access to quality food and water to keep us going while we restore outdoor recreation and wilderness areas in Flagstaff.

The next time you are in the Flagstaff store, thank Ernie and his team for their support of Natural Restorations. 

SRP Awards Capacity Building Funds to Natural Restorations

We would like to thank everyone at Salt River Project for awarding Natural Restorations with a corporate contribution for capacity building. As a community based, nonprofit public power utility, SRP makes corporate contributions to nonprofit organizations that provide programs and services which meet the needs of their customers and enhance the quality of life we enjoy. They are steadfast in their commitment to partner with nonprofit organizations that provide meaningful and beneficial programs to their customers and community. We are extremely proud to have our program recognized by SRP. We are excited to grow our relationship with them and continue to provide volunteer opportunities for SRP employees and their families. 

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Save The Date ~1st Annual Green Friday Project

We loved seeing so many people OptOutside for Black Friday last year. We want to take it a step further this year and start the Annual Natural Restorations Green Friday Project on Friday, November 24th. 

We're hosting a Cleanup the Friday after Thanksgiving at the Salt River in celebration of Green Friday, a day to get outside, give back, and make an immediate impact by helping us remove trash from natural areas. This is going to be a land and water cleanup event. 

Save the date for Friday, November 24th from 8AM to Noon and stay tuned for additional details coming soon! To register, click HERE. 

04/15/17 Lower Sycamore Trash Cleanup Event

We are gearing up for our last Spring 2017 Cleanup before it gets too hot in the desert and we move our projects north for the summer. Join us Saturday, April 15th from 8AM to Noon at Lower Sycamore for a Trash Cleanup Project for Volunteers. Check out the flyer below and click HERE to register.   

03/11/17 Butcher Jones Cleanup Project

160 volunteers joined us on Saturday, March 11th for a Butcher Jones Recreation Area Cleanup. We had Off-Highway Vehicle volunteers in the OHV areas, volunteers on foot in the beach area and surrounding trails, and volunteers in kayaks removing trash from Saguaro Lake before it floats down to the Salt River. 

Photo Gallery by Tom Story:

We will be posting additional pictures and videos soon, stay tuned!!

Did You Know We Remove Graffiti?

We recently launched our Dedicated Restoration Team's Graffiti Removal Services. We remove graffiti, we do not pain over it. We can even get into remote, difficult to reach areas. Check out all of the before and after pictures of a recent Graffiti Removal Project at Lower Sycamore in the Tonto National Forest by clicking HERE.

If you come across graffiti in natural areas across Arizona, please contact us. 

40.53 Tons of Trash Removed from the Desert!

Natural Restorations teamed up with Footprints Matter to Us for the 8th Annual Footprints Matter to Us Environmental Stewardship Event on Saturday, January 21st, 2017.

 

166 volunteers came out to remove 40.53 tons of trash illegally dumped or left behind by irresponsible target shooters in some of the most beautiful landscapes in our state.

 We had two entirely different cleanup sites for this event.

·      44 volunteers worked on Arizona State Trust Land between Gold Canyon and Queen Valley to remove 20.06 tons of trash. 

·      122 volunteers came out over the course of the morning and early afternoon to work on Tonto National Forest Land at Hewitt Station to remove 20.47 tons of trash.

We would like to thank everyone involved in making this event a huge success!

Click HERE to view additional pictures from the event.

 

Historical Trash

When does trash become history?

This is something you will hear us discussing at all of our volunteer events and we thought it would be good information to share with you here because many people we talk to have never heard of trash being considered a historical artifact.

Objects older than 50 years old are considered historic and can be significant pieces of our collective history. 

The biggest thing we would like you to take away from this is if you are in doubt, please leave the item and report it to us so we can contact the proper agency to come out and take a look at it. Please do not remove the object, often times removing the object destroys essential information. 

Below is some additional information on a flyer we put together on the subject.

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Youth Volunteering Opportunities

Did you know we work with elementary, middle, and high schools to provide hands-on service learning opportunities for their students? 

We're excited to host a Trash Cleanup Project for a group of local 6th Graders in January and we'll be sure to share pictures & videos afterwards!

Many schools require volunteer hours each semester and we offer opportunities to get youth out of the classroom and into nature, making immediate, visible impacts on natural areas.

If you are a student, parent, or teacher & would like to discuss future projects, please contact us at contact@naturalrestorations.org. We also work with scout groups and youth clubs and we can accommodate small and large groups.

Giving Tuesday ~ With a Twist

Tomorrow is Giving Tuesday and although we’d love for you to donate to Natural Restorations to increase our impact on the state, we’d like to ask you to give back to us in a different way.

One of the best ways you can support Natural Restorations is by checking with your employer to see if they support volunteerism and have a Community Involvement Advisor. If they do, reach out to them about Natural Restorations and see if they would be interested in learning more about our volunteer opportunities and promoting our events to employees.

Does your employer have a Charitable Giving Program that supports the environment, educating youth, and volunteerism?  Often times, organizations will not accept unsolicited requests and prefer to work with organizations their employees recommend and volunteer with. Let us know if you can put us in touch with the right person to get started.

If you would still like to donate to Natural Restorations, click HERE.

Natural Restoration OHV Area Restoration Project

We are proud to announce our Natural Restorations OHV Area Restoration Project through the Arizona State Parks Off-Highway Recreation Fund.

This project is financed in full by a grant from the Off-Highway Vehicle Fund administered by the Arizona State Parks Board. 

The Natural Restorations OHV Area Restoration Project is designed to address the long-standing issues of trash and illegal dumping in OHV areas. We will remove trash, graffiti, and anything foreign to the environment from natural areas surrounding OHV trails, routes, and areas, while leaving a minimal footprint. Restorations will be completed through volunteer cleanup events and restorations performed by our Dedicated Restoration Team. Click HERE for more details.