
04 Mar FoLAR 2020 Impact report
In A Year Full Of Uncertainty, One Thing’s Certain: River Stewardship Is Lasting.
The support you – our donors and volunteers – show us is always appreciated, but there is something truly remarkable about your support when 2020 produced various issues needing attention and assistance for all of us. Thank you!
With your help, we pivoted quickly when a pandemic changed how we engage the community on the LA River. Our need to shift forced us to be innovative, so we broadcast Return to the River, a virtual series of events across four weekends, where we heard from the Indigenous people of the watershed what the River means to their history and future. We also held our first virtual Noche del Rio, gala where we highlighted various River stewards and BIPOC groups. When the call came from Mayor Garcetti’s Season of STEM Initiative, FoLAR’s environmental educators virtually delivered our environmental education curriculum to students in LAUSD. While many things were new for us in 2020, some things stayed the same such as our Crack the Concrete campaign to drive 100+ acres of continuous climate-resilient open space in an enhanced ecosystem in the mid-River.
We want to THANK YOU for your continued and sustained support for FoLAR and our beloved River

We felt the pandemic’s impact much like everyone else and had to downsize, but our passion for seeing an equitably accessible, restored LA River and inspiring future generations of environmental advocates propels us forward. When funders shifted their monetary support to much needed COVID relief efforts and social justice causes, your support is what kept us moving forward. With a pandemic ailing our society and the social unrest that followed, we refocused our attention on environmental justice with renewed dedication, taking steps to implement our environmental education in schools in the Black community and join with like-minded partners to widen the proverbial table for BIPOC leadership and with those who have complementary expertise and/or work on intersectional issues. We will deepen these partnerships in 2021 – we look forward to partners joining our new and improved Annual River CleanUp while we continue digital storytelling and engagement.
Every dollar, every like, every follow, every view, every comment, every opened email allowed us to function with less staff, stay focused on restoring the LA River, pivot quickly, and be innovative and resilient. Much like the River itself. We made it because River stewards like you made sure that we could.




