We're kicking off December with 12 Days of Nonprofits — a 12-day celebration of the many local organizations that provide needed services to our community.
On the outskirts of the west and east sides of Tucson, there are thousands upon thousands of saguaro cacti standing tall with their arms bent upward and offering what looks like a friendly wave as you enter or leave the city.
Planted firmly in the Sonoran Desert, the prickly saguaros have become iconic figures in the Southwest, even more so in Tucson, thanks to being home to the nationally-recognized Saguaro National Park.
One local nonprofit organization has remained dedicated to protecting, preserving and enhancing the unique Sonoran Desert environment in Saguaro National Park for the last 25 years.
Friends of Saguaro National Park — a nonprofit fundraising partner of the National Parks Service — seeks to protect Saguaro National Park and its wildlife, further environmental education in the community and encourage a connection between the park and community.
The organization's focus is simple, said executive director Fred Stula, as they focus on three founding pillars: discover, protect and support.
"Everything that we do is directly tied to those discoveries about reconnecting youth and reconnecting people to the park," he said.
Cumulus clouds are the backdrop to saguaros near the Sendero Esperanza trailhead in Saguaro National Park's west unit. Maintaining the park's trails is one of the main functions of the Friends of Saguaro National Park.
Environmental education plays a vital role in encouraging the connection between youth and the park, which is why Friends of Saguaro National Park provides transportation reimbursements for 15,000 students from local low-income schools to visit the park annually.
Trail rehabilitation and maintenance is also a large part of what Friends of Saguaro National Park does. Out of the nearly 200 miles of trails within the park, volunteers are able to provide maintenance to nearly one-third of those trails annually.
Some of the organization's current projects include becoming dark sky compliant, which reduces the amount of light transmitted into the atmosphere so visitors can get a better view of the stars, as well as creating trails that are compliant with the American with Disabilities Act. Currently, the organization has implemented three ADA-compliant trails within the park.
"So there are places where people can go that have all different levels of abilities and can come out and enjoy the park. The long-term plan is to make the park as inclusive as it possibly can be," Stula said.
Friends of Saguaro National Park is also home to the nationally recognized Next Generation Ranger Corps, also referred to as the NextGen Ranger program. The 6-year-old program was designed to connect young adults interested in careers with the National Park Service by helping them "discover the agency and its different operational divisions, by providing college students an experiential, engaging and supportive learning and working opportunity at Saguaro National Park," according to their website.
Of the organization's previous 75 paid interns in the program, 28 now work for federal land management agencies, according to Stula.
Since the organization has only one staff member, 85% of the funds raised by the organization go directly back into the park. Because of the size of the nonprofit, the organization heavily relies on volunteers to keep its purpose and goals front and center.
Friends of Saguaro National Park engages with about 1,200 volunteers yearly who participate in every division of the park, according to Stula. The volunteers assist in various protection activities, including buffelgrass clean-up, trail maintenance and even contribute to important scientific research by helping with the saguaro census that occurs every decade.
"Anything that we can do to engage people with Saguaro National Park while actually helping to collect that important research, we're happy to do it," Stula said.
FOSNP NextGen Rangers Jesus Duenas, Olivia Thorp, Maya Tainatongo, Keely Lyons-Letts and citizen science volunteers.
The work of Friends of Saguaro National Park and all of its supporters haven't gone unnoticed on a local or national scale. Through advocacy efforts of Friends of Saguaro National Park and other groups last year, they were successful in getting a federal bill passed that will expand the boundaries of Saguaro National Park by almost 1,200 acres.
The passion for the park radiates from Stula, who moved to Tucson from Connecticut with his wife in 2017 to take his current position at Friends of Saguaro National Park and carry on the goals that the organization's founders established in 1996.
"We love and care about Saguaro National Park enough to move across the country to help," he said. "It's been really awesome learning about a whole new community and engaging people with the park has been very exciting. A bit of a whirlwind, but it's very, very exciting."
How to help
There are a few ways that the community can contribute to the efforts put forward by Friends of Saguaro National Park, including making a monetary donation or "adopting" a saguaro or other Sonoran Desert inhabitants such as a javelina or mountain lion (which makes the perfect Tucson-themed holiday present, by the way).
Friends of Saguaro National Park, a non-profit organization located in Tucson, Arizona.
And, of course, donating your time by volunteering with the organization and spreading the word about the organization also helps.
"Saguaro National Park being successful and having the resources it needs to provide a first-class visitor experience has a tremendous impact on our community," Stula said. "And I think that's why supporting Friends (of Saguaro National Park) is so important because it's an investment in our community beyond just supporting the park."
