I've volunteered with Save the Bay three times, and they are a great organization. Their staff is engaged and passionate and I love knowing exactly how my volunteer time is saving the Bay.
Save The Bay works hard to do exactly that-Save the San Francisco Bay. I feel that my donations are being well-used, and I enjoy the work they do, things like bans on plastic bags (to keep them out of the Bay) and volunteer events to plant native plants.
Lately in the bay area I've been particularly excited to pay for my bags at different grocery stores and finally (yes late to the party) have become diligent in bringing my own. I'd like to thank Save the Bay for their long relentless fight against needless trash and their support of bag bans far and wide. Thank You Save the Bay! PS, I am a proud Bay Swimmer and feel safer due to STB's great work.
I donated once to this organization, and within one month had received a letter asking me to renew my membership. This letter was followed a relentless stream of letters, free calendars, and nagging cards suggesting I needed to renew. I won't donate again, since I'd prefer my money goes towards a cause, and not into full-color mailers and calendars.
Review from CharityNavigator
The conservation committee of our garden club was appalled that the Redwood City Council is seriously considering pursuing the Cargill/DMB plan to build a new city in the salt flats in an area that could be restored to tidal marsh. Beginning in October 2009, a Save the Bay representative gave our group a background slide presentation and since then has helped us develop a coordinated strategy for raising public awareness about the project drawbacks. The strategy entails writing letters to newspaper editors, speaking at city council meetings, and working with members of other conservation organizations. Save the Bay has supplied points to include in letters, web links to papers' editorial pages, dates of council meetings, introductions to other conservationists, and a ton of day-to-day support. We are delighted and impressed with Save the Bay's commitment and support.
I recently learned that BCDC was proposing new laws for combatting sea level rise in the bay and I was interested in learning more about it. I called Save the Bay and they provided me with the entire 26 page proposed regulation which helped me learn about the issue. Save the Bay is a font of information on all sorts of issues involving the health of the Bay. The recent PBS Documentary about the history of the Bay and the history of Save the Bay shows the important work Save the Bay has undertaken over the last 40 years.
Great fun! Provides a very positive connection to the Bay ecosystem. We weeded pepperweed, fennel, mustard and other non-natives to provide more habitat for native species.
The natural beauty of the Bay and surroundings was a big draw for me to move to SF, and I now live a half-block from the water. The history and work of Save the Bay are a constant inspiration to me.
I spent an afternoon cleaning canoes that Save the Bay uses to take school children out in the bay to learn about ecosystems. I was impressed by the program they offer and their staff is friendly and hard working.
I am both a regular volunteer and donor for Save the Bay. As a volunteer for at least the last 3 years I help out at the Palo Alto Baylands native plant nursery with anything that needs to be done: seed collection, plant propagation, weeding, planting on the levees, repair and upgrade projects for the nursery, etc. All of my volunteer experiences have been very enjoyable and I always sign up ahead of time for as many Wednesday afternoon workdays as possible. Everyone on the staff who I have met has always been friendly, knowledgeable and helpful, and it has been great working with all of them. Besides some good physical workouts, fresh air and sunshine on the planting days, it has given me an opportunity to test out some of my own new open space restoration tool designs such as a specialized hole digger for planting the young plants from the nursery along the levees. And it's a great opportunity to learn to identify some of the native (and non-native) plants from first hand exposure. That too has helped to encourage me to develop an on-line plant name learning game for the benefit of those like myself who find it rather challenging to remember names. As a donor I have made strong contributions for the last 10 years. I'm happy that I have been able to support such a worthy organization and can readily see with great confidence that the money has been well spent. Save the Bay has also been a driving force for cleaning up trash from the Bay Area waterways and reducing waste from sources like plastic bags. I have participated in numerous on-line campaigns such as writing a letter to city council members asking them to support an ordinance to require a fee on plastic and paper bags. I have also helped out photographing parts of the Guadalupe River and Coyote Creek and contributing my photos for the trash hot spots identification section of the Save the Bay website. Newsletters, email and the web site have been invaluable sources of information on other issues and ill-conceived development plans that would cause irreparable harm to the Bay and surrounding wetlands, such as the San Francisco airport runway expansion attempt a few years ago and the recent Redwood City massive development proposal. Save the Bay is an essential watchdog over those who work ever so diligently to damage and degrade our environment for nothing more than their own personal profit and selfish retrograde agendas. As an avid natural wonders, plant and wildlife enthusiast I'm thrilled to support and be a part of the fantastic work that Save the Bay does. Open space restoration has become the focus of my life and I know of no better reward than to see the improvements that Save the Bay brings to the quality of life for the plants and animals that depend entirely on a healthy environment for their very existence. I will continue to work with and support Save the Bay for as long as I am able to do so.
I volunteered for the Martin Luther King Jr. Shoreline volunteer day in Oakland and planted a number of native species. The staff of Save the Bay was informative and helpful and I learned a lot about local habitats. My toddler thought it was very fun and it helped me feel very connected to the community at large. I met many similar-minded people and I loved how organized the program was and how simple Save the Bay made it to volunteer.
I work with extraordinarily committed staff on various projects at Save the Bay and everyone seems to be very passionate about their work. Overall I would say that I have been continually impressed how Save the Bay conducts efforts to improve and preserve the local environment in a comprehensive way by encouraging community involvement with education, hands on work efforts, and political action.
I've lived and worked in the Bay Area for 5 years and though its not my direct field of work, I really value what a lot of the innovative non-profits are doing. Save The Bay stands out in terms of raising the broader public's awareness of issues that really matter, or should matter, to them. Two items come to mind. The first was their incredible ad campaign of the last couple of years, where ads with funny captions (e.g. "they don't do it to you") show humans covered in oil dumped by sharks or the like. Genius. These ads were all over BART cars and stations, and they got a lot of people talking. The second is their amazing advocacy on the Redwood City Saltworks. This is an issue close to my heart because it is my field of work. A great development with a lot of financial backing has been proposed for a terrible location. They are fighting goliath and winning. Save the Bay was founded to fight Bay fill, and this project proposes to develop on Bay fill under suspicious environmental claims. Save the Bay has pointed out the inherent contradictions in this mega-development's plans, and organized over a hundred local politicians against it. They've done extensive public education and raised this issue to a level where the public knows about it and knows what's wrong with it. Save The Bay has been doing an incredible job of educating the public about critical issues affecting the Bay that defines this beautiful place where we live.
Thank you Save The Bay for all you do to protect our beautiful treasure. No organization is trying harder to preserve and protect.
Save the Bay lost all respect when I see how they bend the truth to get what they want. Of course everyone wants to "Save the Bay" but during the course of the last year and half I have been contacted by STB to try and get me to support them and not telling the full truth of the matter.
More than any other organization, Save the Bay has been protecting the beautiful San Francisco Bay for decades. As a bay area native, I am eternally grateful for their ceaseless efforts.
An incredible environmental non-profit that after over 45 years manages to stay extremely relevant and hip (loved the bay vs. bag campaign). Great education programs such as the canoes and sloughs and an uncanny ability to get volunteers out for “clean up” events. They are also very active politically, taking a strong stance against the Cargill development in Redwood City and working with local municipalities to reduce the amount of trash that enters the bay through storm water runoff. Save The Bay’s forward looking approach and early adoption of new media such as Facebook has proven to me that this non-profit will be still be going strong in another 45 years and inspiring the next generation of environmental advocates.
Save The Bay has been a pleasure to work with over the past four years volunteering at service projects. They have a very professional team who put a lot of energy into each project, ensuring volunteers are well prepared and oriented before each project, and providing excellent guidance during the project. I really appreciate the introduction they present at the begining of each project, wtih an overview on the history of the organization and how the San Francisco Bay has evolved over the past 100 years. Volunteers always have a great time, and the staff are fun to work with. I have volunteered with my company (REI - Berkeley), and Save The Bay has even set up special projects just for our staff. The best one was a collaboration of many outdoor retailers and vendors who had staff come and volunteer together on the same day.
I worked with Save The Bay during the winter of 2008. During my time with the organization I became aware of Save the Bay's misson to celebrate, protect and restore the San Fransisco Bay Area. Their mission is not only a great idea but it is a reality that Save the Bay is making happen. The staff of Save the Bay are highly trained, organized and motivated to make a difference to our environment with practical action. A daily and weekly schedule of educating the public through restoration projects enables anyone to participate in vital earth pleasing projects all over the bay. Save the Bay has compelling programs for school age children to learn the importance of sustainability and habitat protection all in the form of fun outdoor activities and adventures. These children are soaking up the lessons learned and become enthusiastic ambassadors of the environment. Save the Bay promotes the celebration of our home by leading low-impact outings and creating further awareness of the importance of protecting the land, air and water and its inhabitants for future generations to enjoy. The associates, volunteers and members of Save the Bay have really impressed me with their dedication to making a real difference!