Ocean Connectors periodically features our funders and donors in our blog, to let the community know how our work is made possible and how much we appreciate their generous support! These incredible organizations and companies are making a direct contribution to our mission to educate, inspire, and connect underserved youth with the ocean.
County of San Diego
For the fourth year in a row, Ocean Connectors has been fortunate to receive support from the County of San Diego’s Community Enhancement Program, which aims to stimulate tourism, promote the economy, create jobs, and help build a better quality of life for residents across San Diego County. In addition to hundreds of other worthy local causes, funding from the Community Enhancement Program will support the Ocean Connectors Eco Tour program, which promotes coastal tourism by bringing members of the public into direct contact with San Diego Bay and the Pacific Ocean, and generates funding to support our free youth programs in National City schools. See for yourself why the County is helping our organization to thrive by investing in our Eco Tour program – sign up for an Eco Tour today!
Sand Cloud
In November 2017, Ocean Connectors attended an outreach event called “Pause for the Sea”, a meditation “flash mob” that brought together various ocean conservation groups and allowed us to meet the incredible team at Sand Cloud for the first time. Sand Cloud is a charitable beach lifestyle brand that advocates for marine conservation through the hashtag #savethefishies. They donate 10% of all profits to ocean conservation initiatives. Last March Sand Cloud surprised our Executive Director by presenting us with a giant $5,000 check to support our environmental education programs for underserved students. But the partnership didn’t stop there – Sand Cloud has also donated hundreds of dollars’ worth of products to Ocean Connectors students, their team has attended multiple Eco Tours, they sponsored our participation in the Balboa Park Earth Fair, helped us partake in our first-ever public beach cleanup, and we are now planning a “popup shop” fundraiser at the Sand Cloud store in September! We are honored to be featured on the Sand Cloud website.
SeaWorld & Busch Gardens Conservation Fund
Ocean Connectors has been receiving support from the SeaWorld & Busch Gardens Conservation Fund (SWBG) for nearly nine consecutive years, making them one of our original funders and a key reason why we have been able to grow to where we are today! SWBG was created to raise support for grassroots conservation projects that are truly making a difference, from reintroducing cheetahs to their native ranges in Namibia, to hiring guards to protect elephants from poachers, to saving sea turtle nests along the coasts of Central America, to cleaning up beaches littered with marine debris. Funding from SWBG will support essential Ocean Connectors costs, including salaries and benefits for our team, travel, equipment, and conservation-themed prizes for our students. In the spring of 2018, we took our partnership to the next level by bringing 646 middle school students to SeaWorld San Diego as part of our new Shark Investigation Unit, where they received educational presentations, observed biofacts displays, and interacted with SeaWorld experts around the Shark Encounter exhibit.
Wells Fargo
We are enormously grateful to Wells Fargo for providing funding support to help Ocean Connectors provide free marine science education programs and coastal field trips for 3,000 underserved schoolchildren in San Diego County during the 2018-2019 school year. Recognizing that the success of their business is linked to the success of their customers and the communities they serve, Wells Fargo is working to create solutions that help strengthen communities and local economies around the world. Funding support from Wells Fargo helps cover direct costs that are essential to conducting Ocean Connectors programs, including field trip fees, educational materials, and curriculum supplies, for all four of our ocean-STEM programs based in National City.
Stay tuned for more funder spotlights! You can join our network of supporters by making a donation.
