Thank You to Everyone at REI!

We would like to thank everyone from the REI community in Chandler, AZ for donating $600 to Natural Restorations from the Used Gear Swap seller registration fees at the Chandler REI. We also received a wonderful surprise when they told us we were also invited by the REI Chandler store to receive a $1,000 REI co-op brand gear donation for our program!

Thank you so much to everyone at REI, including the Chandler REI, Phoenix REI, and the Goodyear Distribution Center for continuing to make a huge impact on our program! We are grateful for your support and cannot wait for our next cleanup event together on 02/23/19 at the Base & Meridian Wildlife Area Cleanup. Click HERE to learn more and to register.

Thank You, American Family Insurance!

Thank you,

American Family Insurance Dreams Foundation

and Lori Laswick Agency, LLC!

We would like to thank everyone at the American Family Insurance Dreams Foundation for donating $1,000 to Natural Restorations. Over 11,000 nonprofit organizations were nominated by American Family Insurance customers and Natural Restorations was one of 250 recipients. We are grateful for their support of our programs!

Our friends at the Lori Laswick Agency, LLC are offering a $25.00 donation to Natural Restorations for every household insurance quotation. No obligation for purchase! Please mention Natural Restorations when contacting. Contact them for a free quote!

 

Contact Link: https://agent.amfam.com/lori-laswick/az/scottsdale/5425-e-bell-rd/contact-us/#contact-form  

Join Us for Our 1st Volunteer Event of 2019!

Join Natural Restorations & Footprints Matter to Us for the 10th Annual Environmental Stewardship Event at Hewitt Station. Click HERE to view pictures from this past January’s 9th Annual Cleanup.

Register for participation and FREE lunch from our friends at Red Bear Outfitters. Click the link in our profile and click the green button below the flyer for registration. Participating volunteers will also receive a code for 1/2 price admission to Boyce Thompson Arboretum to be used after the cleanup (valid only on 01/19/19 after 12pm). ⠀

Directions to the staging area: click the link below for directions (use Satellite view): https://goo.gl/maps/mUB8JDdufxu

US60 East Towards Superior, Turn left on Queen Valley Road, 1.7 miles to Hewitt Station Road, 1.5 miles to the Sign-in Table.

2.44 Tons of Trash Removed on Green Friday!

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2.44 tons of trash removed at our 2nd Annual Green Friday Lower Salt River Cleanup! That's 4,880 pounds of trash volunteers helped us remove from the river and riverbanks! 346 volunteers chose to #optoutside and attend our Green Friday Lower Salt River Cleanup at Phon D Sutton Recreation Area the day after Thanksgiving. Thank you to all of the volunteers who helped us make a huge impact on the Lower Salt River!

In 2 years, our Green Friday Cleanups have brought out 606 volunteers, including 153 youth volunteers, for a morning of stewardship and exploring the Lower Salt River. Volunteers have helped us remove 9,680 pounds of trash from the river between the 2017 & 2018 Green Friday Events.

Mark your calendar for the 3rd Annual Green Friday Cleanup on Friday, November 29th, 2019.

Photo of Justin Corey, Director of Field Operations & Co-Founder of Natural Restorations. Photo by Tom Corey Images, Justin's Dad.

BackCountry SuperFoods Donating 100% of Profits on 11/23!

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We want to thank and give a huge shout out to Nick and Lili from Backcountry Superfoods for donating 100% of their proceeds from Green Friday Sales on 11/23 to Natural Restorations!

Nick is a Military Veteran and was a member of our 2017 Dedicated Restoration Team. He and his wife, Lili, run BackCountry SuperFoods and make awesome videos of their adventures and the different backpacking foods they try along the way. They stock a great selection of various backpacking foods, much of which is Paleo friendly and sustainably packaged. 

If you are stocking up for an upcoming trip, please shop with Backcountry Superfoods on Green Friday and beyond. Click HERE to visit their website.

Lower Salt River Cleanup with People's Mortgage Company

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On Monday, November 12th, we took a group of volunteers from People’s Mortgage Company in Tempe to the Lower Salt River for a cleanup at Phon D Sutton Recreation Area. Volunteers helped us remove 149 pounds of trash including a lot of micro-trash, fishing line, cigarette butts, a towel, clothing, shoes, glass & plastic bottles, aluminum cans, broken glass, red solo cups, chip bags, hair ties, pieces of plastic, Capri Sun straws and the plastic wrapper they come in, and much more. ⠀

Thank you to everyone at People’s Mortgage for your support of Natural Restorations and for spending your morning with us making an impact on the Lower Salt River!⠀

Click HERE to view the entire project.

Thank You REI Goodyear Distribution Center!

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We would like to thank our friends at the REI Goodyear Distribution Center for donating $1,000 to our trash and graffiti removal program! We are grateful for their continued support and look forward to many more opportunities to work together in the future.

Check out a few pictures from past cleanup events we have worked together on and join us on Saturday, December 1st when we team up with REI and Arizona Game & Fish for the inaugural Base & Meridian Wildlife Area Cleanup along the Gila River. For additional details and to register, visit our Events Calendar.

Extreme Terrain's Clean Trail Grant Program

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Extreme Terrain’s Clean Trail Grant Program

Earlier this year, we applied for and received a $250 grant from Extreme Terrain’s Clean Trail Grant Program. We used the funds to purchase much-needed rakes for volunteers to use at our 09/01/18 Doce Pit Cleanup in Prescott, our 10/20/18 Lower Sycamore Cleanup, and all future events.

Our friends at The Home Depot in Mesa off of Crismon & the US60 helped us get the most out of our grant dollars by providing us with a discount on the rakes.

We would like to thank Extreme Terrain for launching their Clean Trail Grant Program and for their support of Natural Restorations! They respect the integrity of the landscape we live, drive, and play on, and strive to leave the trails we enjoy better than they found them.

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To learn more about this grant and see if your group or organization is eligible to apply, click the following link to visit their webpage: www.extremeterrain.com.

Volunteers Help Us Remove 7.38 Tons of Trash from Lower Sycamore

7.38 tons of trash removed! That’s 14,760 pounds of trash no longer littering Lower Sycamore on the Tonto National Forest! Thank you to all of the volunteers and organizations who helped us make this event possible, including our main Event Sponsors, Ride Now Powersports, Desert Rat Off Road Centers, Extreme Terrain, 4 Wheel Parts Phoenix, and Knuckle Busters.

Click HERE to view the entire restoration.

We've Removed Over Half a Million Pounds of Trash!

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We've removed over half a million pounds of trash from outdoor recreation & wilderness areas across Arizona!!! Between our Volunteer Cleanup Events and our Dedicated Restoration Team Projects we have removed 504,567 pounds of trash!
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Thank you to every volunteer and everyone on our Dedicated Restoration Team for all of your help and hard work! Together we can keep outdoor recreation and wilderness areas clean and open for everyone to enjoy!

We'd also like to thank some of our supporters and friends who helped us get here: Arizona Trail Association, Arizona State Parks, Ascender Game Carrier, American Rivers, Arizona Outback Adventures (AOA), Arizona State Land Department, Bleeker’s Boxes, Copperpoint Insurance Companies, Desert Monsters Tours, Desert Rat Off Road, Davidson’s in Prescott, DPR Construction, Extreme Terrain, Footprints Matter to Us, Friends of the Tonto National Forest, Gallery of Guns, Icon Vehicle Dynamics, Imerys Perlite USA Inc., Insane Jeep Audio, The Home Depot, Keep Arizona Beautiful, Klymit, Knuckle Busters, LeBaron & Carroll Insurance, Mountain Chicks, Mr Target Online, Nichols Autofab, Odysea Aquarium Foundation, Pima County Regional Flood Control District, Pinal Partnership, Pinal County Sheriffs, Republic Services, Resolution Copper, REI, Ride Now Powersports, SRP, Solutions 8, Sprouts, Salt River Wild Horse Management Group, Summit Jeep Company, SVP Arizona, TerraCycle, Tonto Recreation Alliance (TRAL), World’s Best Graffiti Removers, Wrecked Gear, AZ 4x4 Club, 4 Wheel Parts, United by Blue, Visit Mesa, AZ Goat Yoga, Wildland Trekking, Vortex Optics, and the U.S. Forest Service.

International Coastal Cleanup Day with REI

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09/15/18: For our first International Coastal Cleanup we teamed up with our friends at REI for a cleanup at Bull Pen Day Use Area & Swimming Hole on the Coconino National Forest - Red Rock District. Team members from the REI Goodyear Distribution Center, REI in Flagstaff, and REI in Chandler joined us for a morning of stewardship and fun. We hiked along the creek, picking up 156.2 pounds of scattered trash found along the trails and in the water.

Click HERE to view the entire restoration project.

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We would like to thank everyone at Solutions 8 for being a Supporter of Natural Restorations and donating to our program. We are honored to have our program recognized by this Scottsdale-based business.

The team at Solutions 8 is on a mission to provide lasting and strategic digital marketing solutions that empower their clients to pursue their passionate purpose, enable their team members with opportunity to grow through meaningful contribution and build their local and global community through principle centered business practices.

Over 11 years, they have helped more than 500 organizations grow and scale using their proven digital marketing process. To learn more, visit their website at https://www.sol8.com.

Letters of Support for OHV-Fund Grant Application

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Help Us Increase Our Impact

We would like to ask for your help. We are applying for our 2nd grant from the OHV-Fund managed by the Arizona State Parks Board and we want to include as many letters of support from the community as possible.

Letters can be emailed to contact@naturalrestorations.org by Tuesday, August 28th to be included in our grant proposal. Thank you for your time and support! 

Your brief letter or email can help fund upcoming projects for volunteers and our Dedicated Restoration Team

Need for Our Restoration Projects
If you agree there is a need for our trash & graffiti removal projects in Off-Highway Vehicle (OHV) areas across Arizona, we would greatly appreciate it if you would write a brief letter or email of support to include in our grant application. If you cannot sign your letter/email, please include your full name and a phone number. 

Some of the areas we are targeting in our application include Butcher Jones, Mesquite Wash, Lower Sycamore, Bulldog Canyon, Sugar Loaf, Four Peaks, and the Cinder Hills in Flagstaff. 

OHV & Outdoor Recreation Groups & Clubs
If you like to ride and recreate in OHV areas and you want to see these areas free from trash and graffiti and open for everyone to enjoy, please send a letter of support. Let the grant committee know what it means to you to ride on trails free from trash and graffiti and why clean trails are important to the OHV community. If you’re a member of an OHV group or outdoor recreation group, ask your Board of Directors to submit a letter of support.  

Youth & Family Volunteer Opportunities
If you like that we provide volunteer opportunities for families and for youth to learn about lifelong stewardship and responsible outdoor recreation, please include that in your letter. If you have brought your kids out to our events or you belong to a youth group that volunteers with us, we would love to hear from you! For upcoming volunteer opportunities, click HERE. 

General Support
If you haven't volunteered with us yet, we still want to hear from you. You can submit a letter of support to help show the grant committee that keeping OHV areas free from trash and graffiti is an important part of keeping them open for the public and future generations to enjoy. Everyone should be able to enjoy these areas without seeing trash and graffiti.

In 2017, we received a grant from the OHV-Fund managed by the Arizona State Parks Board. We completed 11 weeks of restoration projects with our Dedicated Restoration Team and removed 69 tons of trash and 557 square feet of graffiti from OHV areas across the state, including Lower Sycamore, Mesquite Wash, Butcher Jones, and the Cinder Hills OHV area in Flagstaff. We also hosted 4 volunteer events and removed an additional 12 tons of trash from Lower Sycamore, Butcher Jones, and the Cinder Hills. Learn more HERE.  

LETTERS CAN NO LONGER BE SUBMITTED.

We are happy to report that we received this grant! Check it out HERE!

Grand Canyon Cleanup Fundraiser

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We are working in collaboration with Grand Canyon National Park to bring our Dedicated Restoration Team to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon for a trash removal project.

The South Rim is the most popular area of Grand Canyon National Park, boasting easy access to the canyon, the bulk of available amenities and services, and the panoramic vistas for which the natural wonder is famous. Sadly, the popularity of this area brings an increase in the amount of litter and micro trash left behind.   

Help us raise funds to take our Dedicated Restoration Team to the Grand Canyon for a trash removal project. 

Any and every donation helps!

If you would like to help fund the project, click the donate button below and you will be directed to PayPal. Please enter 'Grand Canyon' in the special instructions. You do not need a PayPal account to use this feature. 

If your business would like to help sponsor this project, please contact us at CONTACT@NATURALRESTORATIONS.ORG

If you work at a rental agency and can help us work out a deal on a transport van to get our team of five to and from the Grand Canyon, please contact us.

Learn more about our Dedicated Restoration Team HERE. 

Thank you for your support!

Reducing Single-Use Plastics in Your Everyday Life

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At the beginning of the year, we made a commitment to do more to reduce the amount of plastic we use, with a focus on single-use plastics. We started taking coolers full of water to volunteer events and asking volunteers to bring reusable water bottles and hydration backpacks to reduce the number of plastic water bottles used at our events, and we started using reusable produce bags, bamboo toothbrushes, and plastic-free razors/razor blades. This month, we would like to highlight a few more products we have been using to reduce our use of plastics. 

We were introduced to the awesome folks at Manatee Bags through our friend, Lilly, from Lilly's Plastic Pickup in the Netherlands. Manatee Bags is an Arizona-based company on a mission to reduce the amount of plastic dumped in our oceans every year. They donate 2% of their revenue to saving manatees, marine wildlife, and cleaning our oceans.

They were kind enough to send us some Manatee Bags to try out. We've been using them for more than two months and love them. They are breathable, machine washable, and 100% organic cotton. We love that they can be used for produce shopping and storage of greens, fruits, veggies, nuts, grains, and mushrooms. They are extremely durable and since they aren't made of mesh so you can use them for bulk bin items too. We even use them on road trips to keep all of our snacks in one place. 

Check them out at https://www.manateebags.com. *Use discount code LAGOON20 for 20% off your order*

Millions of plastic straws pollute our waterways and oceans and plastic straws continue to make the top ten list of most collected items worldwide. We made a pledge at the beginning of the year to 'Skip the Straw' and it has been an easy change for us to make. Anytime we go out to eat, we ask for our drinks without a straw or plastic lid.

Our friends at the Ocean Conservancy sent us a couple of stainless steel straws and some information about their 'Skip the Straw' campaign. We would like to encourage all of you to do your part and order a drink without a straw the next time you eat out. Click HERE to take the Ocean Conservancy Pledge to 'Skip the Straw'.

If you really like using straws, you can purchase a set of 4 stainless steel straws and a cleaning brush for less than $7 on Amazon and if you select Natural Restorations as your Amazon Smile Charity, they will donate a portion of your purchase to us. 

Support Natural Restorations when you shop for everyday purchases on Amazon! You can support Natural Restorations each time you make a purchase on Amazon through smile.amazon.com, and it is at no cost to you!

Click the banner above or click this link: https://smile.amazon.com/ch/81-4745055

Remember, always start at smile.amazon.com and Amazon will donate 0.5% of the price of your eligible AmazonSmile purchases to Natural Restorations. Thank you for your support!

Set of 3 Manatee Bags - Click HERE to view on their webpage.

Set of 4 Stainless Steel Straws and cleaning brush ($6.89) - Click HERE to view on Amazon.

Bamboo Tooth Brushes ($11.99) - click HERE to view on Amazon

Earthwise Reusable Mesh Produce Bags - ($11.97) - Click HERE to view on Amazon.