According to California’s stay-home order, our staff has been working remotely, pursuing our vision that’s built on a foundation of hope and healing.
Dear Save the Redwoods League Friends,
The last few months have been hard for us all. We are living through an unprecedented global crisis and feeling daily stress and anxiety over the well-being and safety of our loved ones, communities, and environment. At Save the Redwoods League, we are advancing our mission at a moment when many in our community are suffering extraordinary hardship. The staff at the League is so fortunate and exceedingly grateful for being in a position to do this good work to foster hope, resilience, and connection. And personally, I am so grateful to our incredible staff, Board of Directors, Council, and supporters for their dedication to our mission through these challenging times.
Today, as always, we take our cues from the redwood trees, which are linked by a web of roots that support one another, which share resources, which redirect energy in response to stress. They prepare for the long haul, centuries, even millennia, into the future. We will get through this crisis. We are beginning our long climb to a new normal. And the redwood forests can help us heal.
In the meantime, during California’s stay-home order, our staff has been carrying out our mission remotely—advancing critical property acquisitions, restoring forests in Northern California, and sharing valuable redwoods educational tools for those who must teach children at home.
In truth, we started producing this edition well before the pandemic hit, intending to celebrate the launch of Forever Forest: The Campaign for the Redwoods. But while we are in a whole different world today, our campaign now feels more relevant than ever. In this edition of Redwoods, we bring you along on our journey to protect, restore, and connect all people with the redwood forest. With the support of donors to the campaign, we successfully completed our fundraising effort to purchase the Cascade Creek property, a spectacular keystone forest on the Santa Cruz coast. We are thinking generations ahead by restoring forests to their full, powerful, carbon-storing potential through Redwoods Rising, a featured project of the Forever Forest Campaign. And we are strengthening our conservation work by inviting underrepresented groups to help us create transformational park experiences that will be inclusive and restorative for all.
Whether we knew it or not, we have been preparing for this moment. Our conservation vision was built on a foundation of hope and healing. The redwoods have withstood the cycles of nature for millions of years, and they will help us withstand this one as well. With your help, our mission can be a central element of our collective recovery. Together we can progress toward a brighter future through the common denominator of resilient, healthy forests and extraordinary parks.
I hope the spirit of rebirth described in Redwoods will inspire you.
Thank you, and stay safe, friends.
Sam Hodder
President and Chief Executive Officer
Save the Redwoods League
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