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LETTER TO MEMBERS & SUPPORTERS
Dear Friends:
Thank you for making 2004 an outstanding year for
FRIENDS OF ACADIA and ACADIA NATIONAL PARK.
Here is some of what Friends did with your membership gifts and special contributions:
- Granted $869,571 to park and community conservation projects - $$4.6 million since 1995.
- Leveraged entry fees that park crews used to reconstruct East Cliffs Trail (Sargent Mountain)
and reopen the abandoned Penobscot Mountain Trail, as part of Acadia Trails Forever.
- Purchased an option to acquire 369 acres in Trenton, to stage Island Explorer propane
buses for day visitors and commuters.
- Extended the Island Explorer through Columbus Day again.Since 1999,the low-emissions
buses have carried 1.5 million riders, eliminated 558,000 automobile trips and prevented
5,280 tons of greenhouse gases.
- Funded the work of 100 people performing stewardship functions that protect Acadia.
- Fielded 2,200 devoted volunteers who donated 8,900 hours to the park.
- Conducted our most successful volunteer-run gala and auction, raising $453,000
to help Friends preserve the park's wonders.
- Incorporated into our organization the successful volunteer group Friends of Schoodic.
- Published, with Healthy Acadia, the walking map "Bar Harbor by Foot."
- Operated through private channels to help defeat a proposed liquefied natural gas
terminal and prevent thousand-foot tankers in waters off the park's Schoodic district.
- Established the Acadia Advocacy Network.
- Grew invested funds,including endowments, to $15.7 million,their highest level ever.
- Produced a modest operating surplus and kept the six-year average fundraising cost
to less than 5.5 cents per dollar of revenue.
More projects that your support helped bring about are described in this annual report.
We also want to recognize the park's wonderful public servants, led by Superintendent
Sheridan Steele and his deputy, Len Bobinchock; Friends' own hard-working and talented staff; and the organization's dedicated board members, people of remarkable wisdom and generosity. Friends of Acadia's job is to keep Acadia whole and beautiful for current generations
and leave it as an intact legacy for succeeding ones. We find joy in this selfless mission and
hope you do, too. The board and staff promise to make your gifts continue to do great
things for Acadia National Park and the surrounding communities. Thank you for helping
to protect one of Earth's most magnificent places.
Dianna R. Emory, Chairman
W. Kent Olson, President
Edward L. Samek, Treasurer
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