This year has been a year dedicated to fostering partnerships and developing programmatic offerings that reached a broader audience, reenergized our campus, and expanded the forestry conversation.
We hosted three featured art exhibitions that explore the beauty, tragedy,
and complexity of the aftermath of a wildfire-burned forest, the folklore of human-forest connection, and the documentation of forest resiliency and uncertainty.
Our Fellowship Program began assisting fellows with creating action plans for how their community can engage in the wildfire conversation. We’ve partnered with local cultural institutions to create new programs, including our Forest Pub Series at McMenamins Kennedy School and community craft projects like wreath making with Oregon Women in Timber. We successfully launched CANOPY: Forests + Markets + Society, the latest version of our signature forestland investment conference, that brought hundreds of forestry, carbon, and financial professionals
to our campus. And we’ve introduced a series of family-centered programs at the Discovery Museum that enhance our membership and engage all ages.
Our team has grown as well. We’ve expanded our staff and welcomed new board members to further strengthen our operations and programming to meet the needs and serve the vision of our growing organization.
And we have more big plans for our future programming and collaborations with partners. Speaking of project partners, earlier this year, we were included on an Oregon legislature-endorsed slate to receive $1M from the Cultural Resources Economic Funds (CREF) program. We’re excited about the future programming
this grant would support if approved, but we also celebrate being included on the slate alongside 13 other organizations because it acknowledges our efforts to
be a leading arts and cultural institution in the state and the go-to public
destination for people to engage in forestry issues.
With appreciation,
Joseph A. Furia
Executive Director