Champions for Wildlife

Champions for Wildlife partners with local schools to provide Wild for Art programs on North Carolina native wildlife. All programs incorporate an art activity. Each activity runs 45-60 minutes, with 15-20 minutes of a standards-aligned science and wildlife lesson. Students take the art home and share what they learned with family and friends. Each of these programs is provided to teachers free of charge thanks to the support from donors and grantors. In 2023, Champions for Wildlife taught in-class programming - primarily in Henderson and Polk Counties, but also expanded into Buncombe, Tyrrell, and Spartanburg Counties for a few programs - for a total of 108 classes and 2,147 students reached.

Champions for Wildlife spearheaded the Red Wolf Mural Project to create a public art masterpiece on the Red Wolf Center in Columbia, NC where the only population of wild Red Wolves live. Matt Willey painted the mural along with local artists, high school students and members of the community. The mural brought the community together and has greatly increased awareness of Red Wolves and other wildlife living in the Eastern NC Wildlife Refuges. Twenty-one volunteers donated over 1200 hours to the project.

In addition to the in-class programming, Champions for Wildlife partnered with the Polk County School District to lead 49 after-school programs also on native North Carolina wildlife with a focus on creating art to demonstrate appreciation of that wildlife. This programming reached a total of 1,325 students over the course of 2023 and was re-established for the 2024 fiscal year.