Category Archives: Fundraising

5th Anniversary Celebration and Fundraiser

NevadaBugs_5thAnniversaryFundraiser

This summer marks five years since we opened our butterfly house and science center and began insect-focused science education outreach and programming in our community. We couldn’t have done it without your support and participation, so please join us as we celebrate this milestone on Sunday, August 20th, at the Western Heritage Interpretive Center in Bartley Ranch Regional Park, from 2pm to 5pm. There will be something for everybody, with homebrew beer tasting, live music by Strictly Business, a silent auction with great items donated by our supporters and Reno businesses, activity stations for kids to make art and build bee houses, five minute science talks, and, of course, the bugs!

We want to acknowledge all the businesses who have donated items to the silent auction for our 5th Anniversary Celebration and Fundraiser:

 

We really appreciate these businesses for supporting our work, and can’t wait for you to see the great items that will be in the silent auction!

As we pass this important milestone, we are also turning our thoughts to the next five years. We are currently in the process of planning an expansion for the butterfly house and science center, and we continue to grow our outreach and internship programs every year. This 5th Anniversary Celebration will help us raise funds for our programming in the coming years. Admission is free but there will be opportunities to donate, buy Nevada Bugs & Butterflies t-shirts, and bid on items in the silent auction.

You can also keep up to date about the event on our facebook page.

Hope to see you there!

Kevin, Cynthia and the NV Bugs Board of Directors

Get your own special release Nevada Bee-Shirt!

Nevada is home to over 1000 species of native bees that are important pollinators of both wildflowers and many food crops. They come in all shapes and sizes, and they can be found in a wide variety of habitats. Despite being so important, bees are often misunderstood and many populations are in decline.

In order to celebrate these amazing creatures, we’ve created this special release t-shirt that highlights the incredible diversity in color, shape, and size of these amazing invertebrates. Designed by our wonderful and talented board member Angela Hornsby, these shirts are a great way to educate others about the importance and diversity of native bees and highlight your support for the tiny pollinators that work hard every day to help create a healthy ecosystem. Nevada Bugs and Butterflies is proud to support quality science education about native biodiversity in our area, and we provide pollinator education throughout the year. Proceeds from this sale will go directly towards our various educational programs, including workshops, talks, and take-home activities at our seasonal science center, like making your own native bee habitat!

Shirts are shipped directly to your address, order yours online today!

nevada bee shirt

Note that these American Apparel shirts run small- order a size up!

nevada bee shirt ladies

Note that these American Apparel shirts run small- order two sizes up!

The Stillwater Foundation awards grant to Nevada Bugs!

We are very pleased to announce that Nevada Bugs has been awarded a grant from the Stillwater Foundation, located in Reno, Nevada! The Stillwater Foundation seeks to promote global well being by supporting organizations that provide youth development and education, contribute to medical research and outreach, and promote environmental stewardship. We are proud that our outdoor science center and outreach programs serve as educational resources for the community in and around Reno. With the science center and butterfly house closed for the winter after a third hugely successful season, our organization’s work continues with outreach events at schools and youth groups throughout the year. We are also already planning for next year’s season at the science center and beyond, including educational workshops about pollinator identification and conservation and the creation of a citizen science butterfly monitoring program to be a part of the North American Butterfly Monitoring Network. Funds from organizations like the Stillwater Foundation go directly into this programming and we are so thankful for their support of our mission!

Pygmy blue butterfly, Quail Valley Road, Reno, November 8, 2015

Pygmy blue butterfly, Quail Valley Road, Reno, November 8, 2015

Nevada Bugs awarded a Helen Close Charitable Foundation Grant!

We are proud to announce that Nevada Bugs and Butterflies was chosen as a grant recipient of the Helen Close Charitable Foundation, located right in Reno, Nevada! Their generosity will go directly towards quality hands-on science education for youth and families at our outdoor science center and at outreach events throughout 2015. As always, our science center and butterfly house are free to the public and all groups, and contributions from individual donations and grants continue to make our work possible. We are so thankful for the support of the Helen Close Charitable Foundation, and look forward to sharing the wonders of insects with local families throughout the year!

T-shirts for everyone!

Each time we set out a fundraising goal, we are surprised by the generosity of our amazing supporters, and this time was no exception. In just over two weeks we sold 141 of our logo t-shirts and received numerous additional donations, raising a total of $1488! We are grateful to supporters both new and old, and can’t wait to see all those shirts around town in 2015. The money raised from this will go directly into funding the daily operation of the butterfly house next summer. These expenses include everything from supplies to care for our butterflies and create interactive activities at the butterfly house, to insurance and printing costs for our butterfly guides.

During the fundraiser, we had a lot of fun dressing up some different characters in Nevada Bugs t-shirts, and we put these up on Facebook. But, for posterity, we thought we’d put a few of them up here too. Thank you again, and enjoy!

Stand out from the flock!

Stand out from the flock!

Or stand out from the herd! (We were feeling punny)

Or stand out from the herd! (We were feeling punny)

Our shirts go well with mountains!

Our shirts go well with mountains!

Our friend Bertram posed as an entomologist

Our friend Bertram posed as an entomologist

 

Nevada Bugs t-shirt fundraiser!

2014 was a big success for Nevada Bugs & Butterflies: in one season alone we quadrupled the number of visitors to the Butterfly House & Science Center! Besides welcoming 884 visitors to the butterfly house, we also connected with 2,814 budding scientists who joined us at outreach events held in local schools, libraries, and museums. We’re asking for your support as we extend our reach even further with our end-of-the-year fundraiser. Help us prepare for 2015 by purchasing your own Bugs and Butterflies t-shirt! Shirts are American Apparel and are available in men’s, women’s, children’s, and toddlers’ sizes. They make great gifts and will be delivered in time for the holidays!

For adult men and women, go here: http://www.booster.com/nevadabugs_grown-up

For children and toddlers, go here: http://www.booster.com/nevadabugs_kids

Because of logo scaling issues, adult and children’s t-shirts are being sold through two different campaigns.

Sure, the butterflies won’t fly again until springtime, but our plans take wing over the winter, when we focus on developing new programming, researching curriculum, training volunteers, and securing supplies for the summer to come. Additionally, outreach in classrooms and community centers continues through the winter months. Your donations allow Nevada Bugs to provide hands-on experiences with Northern Nevada’s native insects all year long!

Sale ends December 5th; get your shirt before it's too late!

Sale ends December 5th; get your shirt before it’s too late!

 

Still climbing!

We’ve done it again!

We made our first stretch goal and have collected over $9,000 for our project! We are again humbled at the amount of support we have received and are looking forward to putting this money to good work, giving kids opportunities for hands-on science during the summer and school year.

But we’re not done yet! One of the major remaining costs to creating the butterfly house is collecting all those native Nevada Butterflies. These butterflies will serve as the stock from which we will raise caterpillars to be put into the house. Our next stretch goal is to raise an additional $1,000 that will be dedicated to traveling around the state and collecting a diverse array of insects to show at the butterfly house, as well as for student science projects. We are excited to share the beauty and insect life of the Great Basin with others, especially our supporters, so please let us know if you would like to come along on one of our collecting trips. What could be more fun than camping in the the desert and collecting bugs!

Cynthia hanging out in the Toquima mountain range, Nevada

Cynthia hanging out in the Toquima mountain range, Nevada

Our Indiegogo campaign is up!

Hi all-

It’s official now. We’ve launched our fundraising campaign on Indiegogo to build an outdoor butterfly house and science center. It was a solid group effort, and first off we’d like to thank everyone who helped us create such a great summary of our vision for Nevada Bugs and Butterflies. A special shout-out goes to Amy Seaman, who not only narrates, but also edited the footage to create such a wonderful video. We’ve put in some really fun perks for the campaign, including a hug from Cynthia and Kevin (who doesn’t like hugs!), our logo stickers, sticker sheets of Nevada butterflies, a champagne brunch on opening weekend, and a collection of pinned butterflies in a display box. Click here to go to our campaign page. We’d appreciate your donation or just spreading the word about our goal to get kids outside and learning science this summer. If money donations aren’t your thing, please contact Kevin about volunteering for our build dates in April and May.

 

This really is just the beginning. We’ve got some penstemon seeds in the ground for the butterfly house already, and we’re planning a fundraising event in late April, right in Reno, that should be quite a little shindig. The response from people about our project has been amazing, and we are looking forward to a great summer of having kids in the butterfly house and garden, as well as taking live insects to kids in schools and teaching them about the importance of invertebrates in our world.

Butterfly house sketch

Hi all: a shout-out and giant thank you are due to our great friend Sarah Snyder (a fellow Ph.D. student with Kevin), who recently created a beautiful conceptual sketch of the butterfly house! We are excited to use it in our indiegogo campaign video, which will be online in the next week and will go into detail about our plans for the house this summer (also, see our What We Do page). Thanks Sarah!

Butterfly house conceptual drawing by Sarah Snyder

Butterfly house conceptual drawing by Sarah Snyder

Plan view of butterfly house, by Sarah Snyder

Plan view of butterfly house, by Sarah Snyder