STANLEY W HAYES RESEARCH FDN INC

Our naturalist/program coordinator was employed on a full-time basis and, coupled with ample volunteer help was able to expertly manage a growing volume of activity in educational and outreach activities. For our 2025 fy, we tallied a total of 3,884 people in on-site programs and our volunteer hours for the fy grew to 1,204 hours, our 4th consecutive increase in annual fy hours. Our naturalist/program coordinator led and or directed 125 combined programs and fieldstrips to the arboretum during the fy. Major off-site involvement by the naturalist was at wayne county conservation days (1,100 students) and family earth day celebration (500 people). We also serve as a host site on a no cost/low cost basis for eastern indiana beekeepers club, petal & stem garden club, and american discovery hiking club.

We were the host site for the richmond family earth day event in april which attracted approximately 500 people. This was a strong collaboration among local environmental groups to highlight the importance of preserving, protecting and perpetuating our earth. We are enjoying the benefits of a large grant funding 3 areas master planning, staff enlargement & our nature playscape. We have been approved as a certified nature explore classroom for an 8th year & over 2,000 children annually attend learning in this space & we are enlarging our space & upgrading our playscape infrastucture. We are connecting people with nature & supercharging our nature education mission through infra-structure improvements, technological advances such as web-based auto tour narratives & 100 tree narratives with pictures. Our master planning team is honing in on what we & our stakeholders want to see 15 years from now & the prospects are exciting as we grow & prosper and expand our direct charitable