Each year we invite Conservation Alliance grantees from the past three funding cycles to nominate member companies for an Outstanding Partnership Award. The award recognizes member companies that go above and beyond in building relationships with Conservation Alliance grantees. Each nomination describes how the company engaged in a meaningful partnership to help the organization succeed in its conservation work. Celebrating these partnerships is a reflection of the community we have helped to build and exemplifies “Outdoor businesses giving back to the Outdoors.” Samantha Chadwick, Deputy Campaign Manager for Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness, nominated Patagonia for their outstanding commitment to supporting the campaign to Save the Boundary Waters. Samantha shares her partnership story below.
The Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters, led by Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness, began as a local effort in 2013 and has grown to a national movement: the goal is to permanently protect the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness from proposed sulfide-ore copper mining on the Wilderness edge. From the beginning, Patagonia has been one of our strongest and most active supporters, and vital to our successes to date.
We have received grant funding from the local Patagonia store in St. Paul for several years. The St. Paul, Lincoln Park and Georgetown stores have all organized and hosted well-attended public events complete with donated food and live music. The St. Paul store displayed Sig, our petition canoe in the store along with displays for Save the Boundary Waters in their retail windows and collected petitions. In 2014 Patagonia supported their employee and filmmaker Nate Ptacek to film and produce Paddle to DC: A Quest for Clean water, which followed explorers Dave and Amy Freeman on their 101 day, 2,000 paddle/sail journey from Ely, Minnesota to Washington D.C. in a canoe covered with petition signatures. This journey and the film, along with a blog post on Patagonia’s Cleanest Line helped launch our campaign from a local effort to national issue. Now, a grant from Patagonia and support from Nate and others is making possible our new documentary Bear Witness — covering the Year in the Wilderness expedition. Patagonia has also generously supported Dave and Amy Freeman with gear and clothing.
We’ve collaborated closely with a number of individual Patagonia employees who have given their time and talents to help this cause they are passionate about. We are incredibly grateful for the support from Patagonia that is helping us reach and inspire hundreds of thousands of people to protect the Boundary Waters.
