Catch the Drift - Online Fundraising Auction

The Catch the Drift - Fundraising Auction is a collaboration between Leadership Steamboat and Friends of the Yampa, a local non-profit. The purpose of this auction it to help raise funds to support our 2015 Leadership Steamboat Catch the Drift group project, which is comprised of three distinct components:

1. Knowledge Sharing/Education:

∙ Leadership Steamboat, combined with our local partners, will create and install permanent educational signs along the core trail and Yampa River at highly trafficked areas. These signs will detail how to protect our rivers through safe recreational practices, preservation and understanding the Yampa’s inherent value. Areas of focus are water quality, water quantity and sustainability. The permanent educational signs will be designed in partnership with local youth, fostering community involvement.

2. Steamboat Stewardship Kit

∙ We will create a Stewardship Kit containing a campaign branded Mesh River Bag and branded reusable canteens to encourage healthy and sustainable practices for recreating on the Yampa River and in the Yampa Valley. The Stewardship Kits will also be available for Friends of the Yampa to use for fundraising at the closure of the 2015 Leadership Steamboat project.

3. Community Education/Communication

∙ We will launch a marketing and communication campaign around the project titled Catch the Drift, including branding, logo, information brochures, and an informational video.

∙ Host an evening event (6:00 to 9:15 pm) on Thursday May 28th at the Chief Theater that kicks off the Friends of the Yampa River Fest Weekend. At this event we will have a Catch the Drift themed discussion where speakers from our local and regional partners will lead seminars about topics relevant to this project; examples include Water Rights and Fish Habitat along the Yampa.

∙ Partner with Friends of the Yampa to promote and participate in a late summer or early fall “Yampa River Clean­ Up Day”. The goal is to increase community awareness and ongoing participation for this event.

Since 1992, the Steamboat Springs Chamber Resort Association and Colorado Mountain College have facilitated the Leadership Steamboat class; a leadership training program organized to develop leaders in business and community service. Each year, students are selected from a myriad of local businesses to meet roughly once a month for ten months and learn more about the community through field trips and forums designed around the basic elements of the local economy and politics as well as the issues, infrastructure, and local businesses that interest the class.

Each year, Leadership Steamboat selects a group project designed to improve the Yampa Valley. The 2015 project is “Catch the Drift” and focuses on educational improvement to empower user groups and stakeholders of the Yampa River. Leadership Steamboat Class of 2015 recognizes a need for education at the local and state level to illuminate the importance of the Yampa River as a precious recreational and water resource for Colorado. We also see a need for education between the many users and stakeholders of the Yampa River as multiple user groups and activities share what can be limited space. Currently more education is needed to foster stewardship for the Yampa River. Misuse of the river, increased trash, and a straining of relationships between user groups threaten this precious resource. The impact that the Yampa River has on our community and the organizations that are working to protect it require more public awareness and greater support to renew interest in stewardship around the Yampa River.

Leadership Steamboat has partnered on this project with local 501(c)(3) non-profit Friends of the Yampa. The goal is that once the elements of this project are established, they will be handed off to Friends of the Yampa to serve as opportunities for continuous education for the community highlighting the importance of the Yampa as well as in some cases recurring fundraising opportunity for their organization.