Seventeen years ago, we started with a simple goal: to protect watersheds by promoting awareness, alliance, and action. The impact we’ve seen since has been beyond what we could have imagined. Thanks to your generosity, we have collaborated with over fifty conservation organizations in the Shenandoah Valley and beyond. We’ve supported them to protect land, make our rivers and drinking water safe, and inspire people to join the movement to address climate change.
A heartfelt note from one of our partners underscores the impact we’ve had: “Thank you for all the patient coaching and guidance….and for being such a positive influence in our orbit.” Now more than ever, our partners rely on Downstream to help tackle critical environmental challenges. Your support ensures we can continue this vital work.
Together, in 2025 we will expand our conservation efforts in the Shenandoah Valley to pinpoint the presence of contaminants like E. coli and PFAS. Starting with the Friends of the Shenandoah River, we will deploy WaterWatch, our new custom ArcGIS-based mapping tool, to other groups like the Goose Creek Association, Friends of Totier Creek, and Friends of the Cacapon River.
We’re so grateful for your support over the past seventeen years! As we share some of our achievements this past year and look to 2025, we hope you’ll stay on the Downstream Team by making a tax-deductible donation. Together, we can keep making a difference!
Season’s greetings and best wishes for a happy and healthy new year. Thank you for your support.
Read on for a sampling of our partners’ good work in 2024, and a look ahead to 2025
In climate change education. People everywhere want to know what they can do to heal our planet. They want to know who is innovating and how local efforts can make a difference. Downstream’s web team is developing a custom online “resource library,” a compilation of stories on local climate change solutions, for our new partner, Peoples Climate Solutions.
In launching new watershed groups in the Shenandoah Valley. Every waterbody needs a voice. People who will speak up at meetings, raise money for restoration, and organize volunteers. Downstream helped the newly formed South River Watershed Coalition transform from a mercury cleanup effort to a perpetual river steward, and the Town Run Watershed in the Eastern Panhandle with a new website. In 2025, we’ll be supporting the Totier Creek Watershed, south of Charlottesville, Virginia, in their efforts to restore a safe drinking water supply.
In reducing harms from PFAS in our lives. You don’t have to know what polyfluoroalkyl substances are to know they are dangerous “forever chemicals.” They have proliferated for 70 years and now are everywhere—including in our bodies. Working with partners in Virginia and West Virginia, Downstream is helping to craft new ways of addressing PFAS that are straightforward and actionable, giving local PFAS ambassadors the tools they need to reach residents in overburdened and underserved areas.
In rallying young climate voters to the polls. Data shows that many young people who care about climate don’t vote. Downstream wants to change that. We supported Conservation West Virginia by using polling data to create winning motivational messages and a communication campaign designed to build a movement. We kicked off the 2024 cycle with online videos that went viral, viewed hundreds of thousands of times throughout the Mountain State and beyond.
a nonprofit team of professional graphic artists, web developers, video producers, copy writers, and data base experts. We empower watershed conservation through creativity and partnership.
