The Next 10 Bee-utiful Years
About the Campaign
UPDATE: Though we didn’t hit our goal of $100,000 by the end of 2021 - we made significant progress and are still raising funds! Click here to learn about our current campaign.
The last couple of years has brought significant changes to BGO. In 2020, the first few months of retooling every program was overwhelming (to say the least)--however--we have also had the great opportunity to reflect on, focus, and deepen our work. Here is the story behind how we got to where we are, and why we need your help raising $100,000, by December 31, 2021, to invest in a mobile unit (aka dream machine) to jettison us into the next 10 years.
2021 is our ten (yes TEN!!) year anniversary of being a boots-on-the-ground, grassroots nonprofit organization. This organization started with a simple idea--I wanted to show people how to love their bees. In 2011 this work was done through visiting local classrooms to get kids excited, instead of fearful, of bees. I also gave a few public talks on the fascinating world of honey bees, taught beekeeping classes, and worked one-on-one with backyard beekeepers.
However, my true passion has always been for bee habitat.
While working as a research assistant at the University of Montana, I could clearly see--through toiling away on a pesticide project--that what was causing the alarming bee losses was not simple, but complex. I saw this issue as death by a thousand cuts, and I believed habitat loss to be the driver that was pushing our bees over the edge.
Also while at UM it became clear to me that my role in the “save the bees” movement would not be through publishing papers, per se, but by spending as much time as I possibly could with bees - and by making connections with people to share everything I was observing and feeling, hopefully inspiring some action toward the conservation of our bees and their flowers.
I established “Bee Girl” during the last “Great Recession.” After the bee research season had come to a close, I applied for 22 jobs and got 22 rejections. So. I decided to stick with what I knew (education, the nonprofit world, conservation, and bees) and start a little nonprofit to get me through until the next research season. The title “Bee Girl” came to my mind as a spin on “cowgirl,” as bees are our littlest livestock. I thought it was kitschy and fun and memorable. When it came time to go back to the university, I was having so much success, I decided to stick with my own gig for a couple of years until I could get a “real job” in habitat conservation when the economy recovered. And here we are. . . 10 years later. . . I still don’t have a real job - I have a dream job and a “Bee Girl” brand that is recognized around the world.
Over the last ten years, we have had twelve interns (all of which who were female, but one), five staff members (besides me), thousands of volunteers, many iterations of a diverse and supportive board of directors, and collaborations with like-minded organizations like Bee Friendly Farming, the American Beekeeping Federation, The Eastern Apicultural Society, the Western Apicultural Society, the National Honey Board, the American Beekeeping Federation, GloryBee, The WSU Bread Lab, the Nature Conservancy, the Oregon Department of Transportation, the National Farmers Union, the Bureau of Land Management, Southern Oregon University, EcoFarm, George Mason University, Rogue Farm Corps, Minecraft: Education Edition, Eastern Washington University, Trisaetum Winery, Hopewell Vineyards, Irvine & Robert Vineyards, Diamond Bar Beef, the Selberg Institute, the Oregon State University Jackson Co. Extension, Jefferson Farm Kitchen, and most recently Wild Survivors and the One Flower Project. Really – we have actually collaborated on projects, most multi-year and still ongoing, with all of the aforementioned organizations.
Being such a small org, there is no way we could have had the mission reach we’ve had without a lot of support from the beekeeping, farming, conservation, and university communities. I am endlessly grateful.
Through the years, we have evolved through many ideas on how to get people to “love their bees” though celebration, education, and inspiration.
Remember the Beekeepers Ball?! Who attended the 2019 Western Apicultural Society Conference and learned from some of the brightest women in beekeeping? Have you ever volunteered at an American Beekeeping Federation Kids and Bees event? Do you have a copy of our “Kids and Bees Handbook” (version two coming in early 2022)? Did you throw back a cold one and network away at a “Next Generation Beekeepers” mixer? Have your kids done our Minecraft: Education Edition lessons at school (“Build with Bees” was the third most popular game in the world in 2020!!)?
So many good, big things. Here are the numbers –
Since 2011 BGO has. . .
🍃Given 180 presentations in 19 states, 3 Canadian provinces, and 6 countries
🍃Directly reached 88,237 adults through over 200 classes and events
🍃Taught 15,105 kids all about bees in our live programs (we’ve reached hundreds of thousands more through our virtual platforms)
🍃Put 377,625 square feet of flower seeds in the hands of kids
🍃Started 7 bee habitat projects on approximately 380 acres
🍃Discovered Oregon's first Squash Bee, Peponapis pruniosa
🍃Catalogued over 20,000 bee specimens to help tell the story of our regeneration and conservation projects
🍃Inspired thousands of people around the globe! Here’s a note from one of our “beeple” -
"BGO, headed up by Sarah Red Laird, have achieved, through their regenerative and sustainability programs, amazing results over the last 10 years. The work they have already completed to educate people about bees and the environment has enabled our little friends to prosper and grow
Sarah’s dedication, hard work, unstoppable personal drive and the strength of her personality and character has inspired thousands of people, myself included, to be better beekeepers and just as importantly better environmentalists.
So let’s help Sarah and the Bee Girl Organization achieve even more over the next ten years by giving our support and donating to this worthy cause."
Tony McNamara, Surfcoast Honey, Australia
Focus
While the last ten years have been focused on growing out, reaching as many people as possible in as many ways as possible, these next ten years will be focused on growing deeper. We would like to grow our roots down into where we have arrived. And where we have arrived is regenerative agriculture and bee habitat.
We currently have seven habitat projects on approximately 380 acres. We monitor bees and soil and analyze the connections between the two. We currently work with a small number of land managers to assist them in knowing which flowers are the best benefit to their soil, livestock, and our bees. We have some new and exciting methods planned for continuing to educate people (especially kids) about what we are observing and how communities can join in on our conservation and regeneration efforts. And there may even by an academic paper, or two, in the wings. It really all does come full circle!
For the last few years, I have had my eye on the grand prize - the one thing that is the key to deepening our work and creating a system of efficiency that will provide time for the real work. No, not being awarded a National Geographic Fellowship, though this is runner up. We need a “Mobile Research and Education Unit.”
We have never attempted a large capital campaign before. So this is - in a word - terrifying. But then I take a few deep breaths, look at the work we have done and envision what we will do, and feel a resonate, yes.
About a year ago, while on sabbatical in Eastern Oregon, the vision all came together.
I have an extensive list of ranchers practicing regenerative agriculture that BGO would like to collaborate with. I presently have a focused list of places I’ve been invited to, to see what is going well and what we can do better (more flowers, always). Many of these places are thick with bears and wolves, which I’m SO excited about (growing up partly in Alaska and being surrounded by said animals); however – sleeping in a tent in bear country surrounded with animals capable of stampeding gives me pause.
Bottom line – weeks of food, camping/cooking equipment, soil and bee monitoring equipment, and me sleeping is not going to fit in my old Subaru (which wouldn’t start and blew a tire on my second to last habitat research trip).
We need a large livable, workable space. We need a camper van, outfitted with a mobile soil and bee lab. This will be my ticket to being self-sufficient and highly effective on in-depth trips.
And my staff and I will co-pilot together, when I’m working on local projects. We currently spread out over two cars to fit everything in on big monitoring days, and always forget something.
After sitting with this idea for nearly a year, and talking through it with the BGO board every few weeks, a van came up for sale that I knew was “the one.”
Filmmaker, photographer, and author, Ben Moon, is selling the van he hand-built with so much love, has called home for years, and wrote “Denali” in. Though he has received hundreds of offers, he is willing to sell the van to us. He loves honey, we hit it off well, and he feels that BGO is the right next owner of this precious piece of property.
This is where you come in.
This is an out-of-the-box capital campaign for an out-of-the-box organization that wants to continue to lead us through this essential and timely chapter of bee conservation. Please help us by giving any amount you can. Your support means the world to me, the BGO squad, and – I believe – our bees.
xo
Sarah, Bee Girl
More information on our programs:
"About ten years ago, I was one of the little kids who attended Sarah’s Kids and Bees talks. Sarah and BGO planted a small seed of wisdom at a young and impressionable age: care for bees, care for nature, care for your community.
This giving season, consider making a donation to our community, kids and bees. The BGO is a small but mighty organization with huge, ambitious conservation goals. But importantly, Sarah and her team approach conservation from a holistic and inclusive viewpoint; the health of a single bee, a single human, is dependant upon that of their habitat.
While reaching education and regenerative agriculture milestones, the BGO needs your help funding pollinator research. We need a van. For solid science, for thorough research, for habitat-building and broad-scale impact.
From someone who has seen firsthand the integrity behind this organization and its leader, and our team’s commitment to you and you and you and you, and every bee in between, donate today!"
-Annika Bowman, BGO Intern