HSBC Bank Canada has donated a half-million dollars to help school children across the country get hands-on, experiential conservation education. Earth Rangers, an empowering wildlife education kids charity, and the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC), a not-for-profit private land conservation organization, will each receive $250,000 over five-years.
HSBC Bank Canada, a subsidiary of Britain's HSBC Holdings plc, has 7,200 offices in over 80 countries and territories, and assets of $2,637 billion (U.S.), as of March 31, 2012. HSBC Group is the world's second-largest banking and financial services organization, as of 2011.
"We believe that education and the environment are fundamental building blocks for the development of healthy communities," HSBC Bank Canada president and CEO Lindsay Gordon said in a press statement. "We are delighted to support Earth Rangers and the Nature Conservancy of Canada in their collaborative approach to environmental education, enabling thousands of children across the country to better understand what they can do to protect Canada's natural habitat and wildlife."
The donation will enable Earth Rangers' national tour to reach an additional 250 schools across Canada over the next five years. The school outreach program educates students about the threats facing biodiversity and empowers them to take action to help protect wild animals and their habitats.
It will also help 10,000 children kick off their Earth Rangers' Bring Back the Wild! fundraising account with $5 each. Bring Back the Wild! is a collaboration between Earth Rangers and the NCC empowers kids to take direct action by raising funds to protect endangered animals and their habitat. Since launching in 2010, it has reached over 300,000 students and inspired over 150,000 children to start their own Bring Back the Wild! campaigns. Through online and school-based fundraising Earth Rangers' members have raised over $360,000 to date.
The money will also go to the Support Nature Day events, which gives kids aged 10 to 12 "adventures in conservation" at select NCC sites. Kids from schools in Montreal, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver will get the opportunity to work alongside NCC's conservation biologists, learning first-hand how to care for some of Canada's most vulnerable natural areas. Since 1962 NCC and its partners have helped to protect more than 2.6 million acres (1 million hectares) coast to coast.
Read Samaritanmag's Earth Rangers feature here.
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