Saving Land, Nurturing Curiosity: A Letter from Our Executive Director

December 10, 2025

Dear Supporters of Skagit Land Trust,

Growing up in Toronto, my world was mostly city streets and buildings. But every summer from age eight to eighteen, I spent weeks at a Y camp on Georgian Bay, Ontario. Those summers changed my life.

Each day we paddled among rocky islands and fell asleep under the stars — on very hard rock, since insolate pads didn’t exist back then! But I grew curious about the vast, colorful, striped rocks we camped on and how they formed. I began to notice birds – even a kid pauses when a loon’s call echoes across a still bay at night. Those experiences gave me a sense of connection to nature. They led me to study Environmental Science and, eventually, to a career in conservation.

Giving children the chance to fall in love with the natural world and follow whatever it awakens in them, matters. At Skagit Land Trust, with your help, we get to see that spark often. Each year, our Outreach programs touch the lives of hundreds of kids. Many explore forests, wetlands, and shorelines that you and other members have helped us protect. Kids watch salmon return to streams, study birds going in and out of snags, and marvel at the size of a tree a beaver can cut with their endlessly growing teeth.

The kids’ thank you notes that we receive show the many ways they are impacted by being in nature:
“When you told me the beavers almost went extinct that was sad.”
“I loved doing the binoculars!”
“I learned beaver tails squirt goo that they used to use in vanilla ice cream. I got my brother to stop eating vanilla ice cream.”
“I’m bringing my family here this weekend.”
“I want to go to Utopia again. I wish I was still there!”

I wish I was still there. Nurturing curiosity, wonder, and connection will shape the choices and lives of tomorrow’s leaders, helping to protect the wildlife and natural world they love.

Saving land takes a community. Whether you volunteer, donate, or share your love for the land in other ways, you are part of this legacy. Thank you.

Molly Doran, Executive Director

Go to our Youth Programs page to learn more!