Your Association had a banner year in fiscal year 2001 (October 1, 2000 through September 30, 2001). Sales exceeded $118,000 at the Chincoteague Refuge. What this meant was that the CNHA was able to provide the Chincoteague Refuge with $42,000 in funds for the "Wish List!" Each year, both the Chincoteague and Eastern Shore of Virginia Refuge are able to submit this "Wish List' for items that many times cannot be afforded based on the individual refuges' respective budgets. These funds greatly improve the services which we can provide to the public.

This year the Chincoteague Refuge was provided funds to: hire four public use interns; conduct special events; provide support to our valued volunteers; help our schools in the area of environmental education; conduct needed outreach for the Refuge Systems Centennial; give a special thanks to those that have helped with the Bateman Center project; purchase a table-top copier for the Visitor Contact Station; and provide an additional $22,700 for the visitor center project. These projects will greatly increase our abilities to serve and better educate the various publics which frequent this refuge.

The money provided is fantastic, but the support provided by CNHA is even more valuable. Over the years, your Association and its members have been heavily involved in an Adopt-a-Tree program which helped reforest portions of the refuge following a Southern pine beetle outbreak. It was also instrumental in the funding and development of the first video of the refuge ever produced, and in taking on the production of T.R. Bear to support the Centennial of the National Wildlife Refuge System.

Your work in regards to the proposed Bateman Center is extensive: for details, please see the article on the center in this Piping Plover. In the past you have provided interpretive foot tours, and currently are working on possibly providing visitors with an interpretive tram tour. if successful, this endeavor would take the place of the very popular Assateague Island Tours, which was discontinued in 2000.

This list is not all inclusive of the efforts of the CNHA. However, it does point out that your Association is more than a sales area in a Visitor Contact Station - MUCH MORE!

John Schroer Refuge Manager

Editor's Note:

CNHA's net revenue for the year ending 9/30/01 was $68,063, from sales of $164,807 and Membership & Miscellaneous revenue of $16,267. In addition to the $42,000 made available to the CNWR, the CNHA also added $13,000 to the special account for funding new exhibits for the new CNWR visitor center, bringing the current total in that special fund to $52,096.

The Eastern Shore refuge received $13,033 which was allocated as follows:

The amount of the allocation to each of the refuges is determined by a formula that is based on the contribution to revenue which each refuge generates from their sales outlets.

CNHA Business Manager, Wendy Crawford, Bertie McNally at the CNWR visitor center, and the volunteers who staff the visitor centers, deserve much of the credit for this record breaking revenue achievement.

Frank V. Moore