Today we reflect on the major moments and top accomplishments of 2021 with a dash of pop culture fun! We hope the Top Ten gives you a laugh or two, as well as inspiration to make a donation today. It's not too late to support our year-end campaign and power our programs in the New Year!
Your Top Ten Reasons to Give to WMG:
10. Instead of the Year of the Ox, we’re naming 2021 the Year of the Beaver, with two significant beaver firsts for WMG. Like Taylor Swift’s early albums, a beaver was re-released on the San Pedro River in April, and we launched the first-ever Binational Beaver Survey in the U.S. and Mexico in November. Thanks AZ Republic for this media coverage!
9. Bringing back our Rainwater on Tap happy hour had a lot in common with Daniel Craig’s final James Bond movie: it was highly anticipated, there were fancy cocktails and tropical music vibes, and we took precautions for a deadly virus. Fortunately, no one left the Living Lab heartbroken (that we know of).
8. WMG Understood The Assignment when we launched our Let’s Live Hydro-Local campaign this summer, right before the Department of the Interior declared the first-ever Colorado River Basin water shortage on August 16th. (If you don’t get this reference, you might not be on TikTok…if you are, follow our new account @watershedmg!)
7. Props to Dictionary.com for choosing "allyship" as their 2021 word of the year. Even though "hydro-local" didn’t make the list, we’re nominating ourselves for an honorable mention.
6. Before the Paris Climate Conference that led to a new international climate agreement, over 400 people attended our 10th annual Desert Living Home Tour, learning practical, low-cost water and energy solutions so we can all help keep the planet cool (and so Bernie Sanders has a reason to hang on to his mittens from the inauguration).
5. We increased outreach for programs like Family Saturdays and Build Your Own Basin in neighborhoods right around the Living Lab. Unlike Olivia Rodrigo, you won’t need your “drivers license” to join us if you’re a walk, bike, or bus ride away.
4. We liked seeing Dune take on water harvesting on the desert planet Arrakis. After developing laundry-to-landscape and composting toilet kits, it’s about time to go back to the drawing board and develop our own stillsuit kit for ultimate water recycling.
3. Monsoon 2021 reminded us that climate change is not just about hotter and dryer weather in the Southwest—it’s also about extreme wet seasons! Thanks to our Flow365 volunteers for capturing a record number of flow days for Tucson’s creeks and rivers this monsoon season after 2020’s “Nonsoon.”
2. We’re advocating for rain basins to be funded locally by President Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure package. Let’s use at least part of that $1 trillion dollars to BYOB!
1. We made a Latin crossover reboot of “Watermelon Sugar” by Harry Styles, making the song way more fun/más chingon with our "Basincito" music video. Time to start the New Year with your Basincito High!
Thanks for giving generously and making 2021 a memorable year!
