Passport to Texas

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Recreational Equipment, INC—commonly known as REI—has been a valued partner of Texas Parks and Wildlife’s for years. And now they’ve gone above and beyond. Bryan Frazier has details.

66—The first thing they did was with our Texas Outdoor Family Program, one of the most popular programs that we’ve done over the last few years. They replaced the sleeping bags and the tents for that program because all of those tents that we had for that program were lost in the Bastrop Fire. What they also did in December was—at the cashier’s counter there when they check out with their merchandise—for the month of December in five stores, they simply asked people if they wanted to make a donation to parks. And by doing that for that month, they raised more than 11-thousand dollars for state parks. And all that went to Texas outdoor families to help them with that program. Most recently, they gave us 25-thousand dollars from REI Corporate to print—for the first time ever—a Texas State park Guide in Spanish. So now it’s available to a whole group of people who might have had a language barrier, but were really interested in getting out and seeing the wonderful beauty and diverse recreation tht we have in Texas. All of that made possible by REI’s involvement. Helping us do things that we otherwise simply couldn’t do, and saving taxpayers’ dollars—that we’re also stewards of. It helps us use those for other projects so that when people get to parks, their park experience is better.

Thanks, Bryan.

Funding for our show comes from Chevrolet: supporting outdoor recreation in Texas because there’s life to be done.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife I’m Cecilia Nasti.