ARMENIA TREE PROJECT
65 Main Street
Watertown, MA 02472
Toll Free: (866) 965-TREE
Email: [email protected]
Web:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 9, 2007
Generous Donor Challenges ATP to Raise $500,000 by End of 2007
— Harry T. Mangurian, Jr. Foundation Will Match Donations Received
WATERTOWN, MA–Armenia Tree Project (ATP) is proud to announce that Harry T.
Mangurian, Jr. has agreed to match donations made in support of the
organization between September 15 and December 31, 2007.
"The goal of this campaign is one million dollars ($1,000,000). If we raise
$500,000 by December 31, then Mr. Mangurian will give $500,000 from his
foundation," explains Executive Director Jeff Masarjian. "Our programs stir
people’s passions and energy, and we are thrilled that this wonderful offer
will allow us to increase our planting of new trees. We need everyone’s help
to meet the challenge."
A second generation Armenian-American, Mr. Mangurian became familiar with
ATP only last year and in a very short period of time began supporting the
organization’s effort to expand the number of donors contributing to ATP. He
helped to create a unique mail appeal with photographs of ATP’s work and a
20 dram Armenian coin–symbolizing ATP’s program to purchase tree seedlings
grown by families in the Getik River Valley. A record number of new donors
responded to that appeal at an introductory level.
"We still have a long way to go to reach our 2007 tree planting objectives,"
states Masarjian. "This spring, ATP planted the first 20,000 trees at the
new Hrant Dink Memorial Forest near our Mirak Family Reforestation Nursery
in northern Armenia. Our goal is to plant the remaining 33,000 trees this
fall to create a lasting tribute to this noble Armenian who was killed this
past January in a tragic criminal act."
In addition to this memorial project, ATP will plant another 350,000 trees
this fall at dozens of urban and rural sites around the country. Since 1994,
ATP has planted and restored more than 1.5 million trees and created
hundreds of jobs for impoverished Armenians in tree-regeneration programs.
The organization’s three tiered initiatives are tree planting, community
development to reduce poverty and promote self-sufficiency, and
environmental education to protect Armenia’s precious natural resources.
Some of the impacts of deforestation include degraded farmland, depleted
water supplies, climate change, loss of wildlife habitat, and poor air
quality. ATP is working on an increasingly larger scale to reverse the
tragic loss of forests in Armenia, which went from covering 25 percent of
the land at the turn of the 20th century to less than eight percent today.