DONATE WITH PAYPAL or CREDIT CARD
or by check: Heart of the Gila, 9 Airstrip Road, Mimbres, NM 88049
Welcome! At Heart of the Gila, we promise to use your money wisely.
Our non-profit has a volunteer Director, so our administrative costs are low. When you donate to Heart of the Gila, we put your money to work on the ground-educating, stewarding and protecting the public lands of the Southwest. Check out some of what we have been up to in 2024, and what lies ahead in 2025.
In September of 2024, we rededicated our Children’s Butterfly Garden with a celebration attended by more than a hundred visitors (most, under the age of five!). The garden was originally planted in 2015, in honor of Ella, Ella, and Michael. Today, the butterfly shaped learning space is more accessible, holds more plants and allows more learning inside of its wings. Visit the butterfly at Silva Creek Botanical Garden in Silver City after the monsoon rains, when butterflies abound, and we hold our Monarch tagging workshops and Endangered Species Education programs. Keep us going!
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In the past 5 years, we have focused on creating broader and more equitable access to outdoor programming throughout our region. Your donations fund our Outdoor Equity Watershed Education Programs. In 2024, we reached hundreds of children during the Gila Wilderness Centennial Celebrations. Feel free to help us do more!
DONATE to our education programs
We advocate for the wild places of the Southwest. In 2024, the United States Air Force published it Draft Environmental Impact Statement to lower the level of supersonic flight over the Gila and the Southwest to 5,000 feet.
As a member of the Peaceful Gila Skies Coalition, Heart of the Gila helped bring out hundreds of people in opposition to the proposal, collected 6,000 petition signatures, recruited 89 businesses for a sign on letter in opposition, and submitted hundreds of pages of technical and legal comments to the Air Force in opposition to the proposal. We promise to keep the pressure on.
In 2024, we also continued to advocate for Wild and Scenic Designation for the Gila River through our film, Journey Down the Gila, and filled theaters in Las Cruces and Socorro, NM in support of a wild Gila River.
No matter who is the White House, there are always new environmental challenges. Now is not the time to give up hope!
All our advocacy activities are funded strictly through your donations. Thanks to all of you who support our work and the work of other environmental champions.
DONATE TODAY.
Cheers to our 2024 Trail Interns, Laim, Soren, Maya, Parker and Gabriella for their amazing work this Summer. Along with Trails Manager, Zack Crockett, they completed 13 miles of trail maintenance were completed on the Gila River Trail.
Our Internship program puts young adults in outdoor work settings to gain experience, confidence, and training in valuable skills for a career taking care of our public lands. You can support our internship program in honor of Wolfgang Alexander Mahl. We miss you, Alex!
Please consider DONATING TODAY
Know someone who can benefit from this experience? heartofthegila@gmail.com
Stewarding Public Lands
Our volunteer opportunities range from trail maintenance to removal of non-native plants, to front country and interacting with visitors. In 2025, we will partner with New Mexico Wild Wilderness Rangers to tackle the removal of non0native plants in remote locations across the Gila Wilderness.
Join one of backcountry stewardship projects and volunteer with
heartofthegila@gmail.com
You can find Heart of the Gila in local schools (this year in 2024), teaching about the critical importance of flowers to our food supply or petitioning the US Forest Service, during the 2024 Forest Planning Process, to better protect rare and endemic plants, like this striking purple-headed Mogollon Clover. From children to decision-makers, we focus on educating about the intrinsic value of nature. Our goal to foster a love of place that grows into a fierce desire to protect wild places.
Join us today
DONATE WITH PAYPAL or CREDIT CARD
or by check: Heart of the Gila, 9 Airstrip Road, Mimbres, NM 88049
Thank you for helping us protect the wild lands of the Southwest and thank you all you do! We appreciate you!
Heart of the Gila is a registered non-profit in the state of New Mexico:
Tax ID number: 82-2579158