Dear Member of the Trout Unlimited Family:

I was on the Potomac recently at dawn casting and jigging for stripers and shad. The fish were blithely unaware of the crisis taking place above their watery home—impervious to the coronavirus that has upended our world.

We do not share that luxury. COVID-19 reminds us every day that the health and safety of our families, colleagues, members, and supporters is the most important concern at a time like this.

Like many of you, we at Trout Unlimited have stopped traveling, canceled meetings, and closed offices.

But make no mistake, our staff are still working hard through these trying circumstances.

We will get through this, and we will do it together. And we will continue the good work of protecting and restoring the places we live, love and fish.

The work of Trout Unlimited brings hope. Hope motivates action. And action changes the world.

Every time we protect a landscape, such as the Smith River in Montana, we remind our fellow citizens that we all play a role in protecting the environment.

Whenever we recover degraded streams, we give hope to people that their individual efforts are part of a larger movement to recover the lands and waters that sustain our great nation.

Conservation is the most optimistic idea that America ever gave the rest of the world, and with every mile of stream that we protect and restore, TU provides tangible evidence that collectively we can make a difference.

Because of all you do for your councils, chapters, and the national organization, we will emerge from this time of uncertainty stronger than ever before.

I look forward to seeing you on a river or stream soon. Until then, I invite you to connect with us “virtually”: Visit TU.org, check us out on our Instagram, Twitter and Facebook pages or join the conversation at community.tu.org. We’ll keep you in the loop on everything from conservation projects to fly-tying instruction.

There’s one other thing you can do today. Many of us in the TU family are fortunate in that we can work from home. In part this is thanks to essential workers who are reporting for duty every day, treating those stricken with COVID-19 and keeping our society running.

We owe a debt of gratitude to these doctors, nurses, grocery store workers, law enforcement members, postal workers and others.

So as a small gesture of thanks, we are offering them a free membership to TU. Hundreds of new members have taken us up on the offer.

If you have a neighbor or colleague on the front lines who likes to fish and cares about conservation, please pass along this offer and tell them to either email me personally or join using our online form to take advantage of it.

And as always, please don’t hesitate to contact me, or any of the team, if we can be of assistance.

All my best,

Chris Wood

President & CEO