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Once again it is time for our annual CoCoRaHS year-end fundraiser. Please help us raise $200,000 by January 7th as you consider giving to a cause that you enjoy and believe in. This amount is just a third of our annual operating budget, but it sure does go a long way . . . and if we raise $600,000 (our whole budget) we'll really be popping the champagne corks (could there be some unknown millionaire donors right within our own network?)!! Last year donations came from just 10% of our observers. For this year's campaign we are aiming to raise that number to 25% . . . just $10 will do the trick. Fingers crossed! If you have not donated before, this would be a great year to make a small donation. We are also hoping for 1,000 new donors . . . thanks for your consideration.
OK, onto our theme . . . clouds. We see them almost every day, but to quote the line from Joni Mitchell's Both Sides Now, "We really don't know clouds at all". Clouds are the theme of this year's CoCoRaHS fundraiser (and boy do we have a great cloud shirt as a gift for donations of a certain amount. See below). We see them all the time, but perhaps we don't really know much about them. Cirrus, altostratus, cumulonimbus . . . in the coming weeks we will give you a short primer on these ice cream castles in the air. We hope that you'll follow along and and if so inclined even consider making a donation to this campaign. We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit network in case you wondered.
CoCoRaHS is very thankful for each of you, You are part of our precipitation monitoring family. You take the time and effort to measure precipitation (or the lack of) at your location as often as you can and we all learn things about the climate of our communities that can surprise even the long time weather sage in all of us. It's our observers that make CoCoRaHS tick. Close to 26,300+ active observers make CoCoRaHS the premier precipitation network that it is and the largest source of daily precipitation measurements in North America and possibly the world. Your observations are certainly used and make a daily impact on so many. Our network of volunteers stretches from the coast of Labrador on the Atlantic, southward to the U.S. Virgin Islands and westward to Guam and villages of Alaska in the Pacific.
And CoCoRaHS is not just about collecting precipitation data as many of you already know. It has added unexpected benefits, part of a daily routine that can become a happy, healthy rhythm in our lives. I remember one observer's spouse telling me with a chuckle, that she was thankful to our network for giving her retired husband something to get up out of bed for and look forward to each morning. We have learned from many of our precipitation family the extra benefit of belonging to something that they enjoy. A woman in Michigan put it so well a few years back that we repeat her statement during each campaign. "I used to check the rain gauge in conjunction with my dog’s morning routine. Now that she is (very) sadly gone, CoCoRaHS has held me to the habit of exiting the house. Checking my daily “gauge catch” gets me outdoors first thing, into the day—the REAL day. In addition to making a smidgen of a contribution as a citizen scientist, I receive the benefits of smelling the air, gazing at the sky, hearing the birds and the breeze. It is a gift I give to myself, and honestly, I might end up skipping it if I didn’t have CoCoRaHS as a welcome prod." Please tell us about your unexpected benefits when you have a moment, we'd love to hear from you.
As in previous year's we are able to offer a special thank you gift available to all who made a donation of $65 or more. This year, it is our CoCoRaHS "Clouds" t-shirt and the reviews we've had are a thumbs up. It's a sapphire blue t-shirt with dark yellow and white graphics. A long-sleeved version is available for donations of $100 or more (but you are still able to choose a short sleeve shirt instead). Shirts will be mailed out in February or earlier.
-- View Joni Mitchell's performance of "Both Sides Now" from the 2022 Newport Folk Festival