Help Support Our Educational Efforts
You can help support our educational efforts!
As with most educational endeavors, there are never enough funds to cover the costs of developing and running high quality programs and, unlike most, we focus our efforts towards creating positive, memorable, and inspiring learning experiences, not profits. Because of this, without the continued outside support of our efforts, what we do is impossible. We need your help and support to make all that we do possible! Below are five ways you can help GTC grow and achieve our mission plan to inspire kids of all ages in the sciences.
1. Donations of collections, materials, equipment, and funds
Mineral & fossil collections and specimens: We gladly accept donations of minerals & fossil collections and other materials for use in our educational programs and displays. Regardless if it’s one specimen or an entire collection, we would be very grateful for your donation and will put them to good use.
Lapidary and other tools & equipment donations: We gladly accept donations of lapidary and other equipment for use in our educational programs, displays, and our future interactive museum. Regardless of its condition or if it’s one piece or an entire collection of tools and equipment, we would be very grateful for your donation and will use them to further our mission plan.
Financial donations: Every penny counts, and we welcome your support no matter how big or small.
Mining Equipment Donations: We are also seeking old mining equipment for use in educational programs on mining history along with end uses of what was mined in our daily lives. We also seek to create some displays honoring of those men and women whom made great sacrifices and served our nations needs by mining for the minerals and elements used in the products and services we utilize in our daily lives.
NOTE: Whatever donated materials and equipment we cannot use, we will find an educationally based entity that can use it, such as school, nature center, etc, or we may sell or auction off portions of the materials and equipment donations with ALL of proceeds/funds generated from the sale of such being used for strictly for the support of GTC's educational efforts.
2. Grants, sponsorships, and advertising opportunities
Grants & Sponsorships: One of the many ways you can help support our efforts is in the form of grants & sponsorship of an entire program, partial sponsorship of some the equipment or displays used in a program, vehicles, facilities, etc.
NOTE: As we are not yet a non-profit entity, we recommend you consult your tax advisor in regard to tax deductibility.
Advertising: In some cases, your grant or sponsorship may count as advertising opportunities. By defining your support and sponsorship as advertising, this could potentially make your support of our educational efforts tax deductible. Your company logo (and contact info if you wish) will be prominently displayed on our website, on select banners, displays, pieces of equipment, and vehicles.
Please contact us if you are interested in offering us a grant, sponsorship, and/or wish to explore this as an advertising opportunity. We badly need your help and support, so lets work together on this and find a way to make this all possible!
3. Support GTC's costs of daily operations, and help us find our new permanent home!
GTC Rock Shop, Warehouse, & Seasonal Locations: We always welcome your financial support of the operating costs of our many locations. Our retail division is critical element to funding and making our educational program efforts possible. Every dollar we spend on operating costs is one less we have to work with towards those efforts.
Help us find our long-term home: Long-term, our mission plan requires that we find, build out, and keep a new facility/home base for our operations. We have always envisioned our permanent home as being on a fairly large property that was zoned to enable us to build and operate not only our geoscience entertainment & education center, but also include our store, warehouse, offices, and ideally even a private campground specifically for those coming out for fun & educational geoscience experiences. This would only be possible with a great deal of outside help and financial support. Please contact us if you can help.
4. Volunteer your expertise and time
Accepting volunteer help to this point has been a financial challenge due to our ethical and contractual requirements to have everyone that works with the public go through child care back ground checks and complete significant training. This is both time consuming and costly. However, we are working towards accepting volunteer help as we can’t possibly do it all alone.
Note: For legal and safety reasons, at this time we still can not accept volunteer help from anyone under the age of 18. We will be revisiting this policy again soon and hope to make some changes to this policy moving forward.
We are seeking volunteers to:
be guest speakers/presenters and share their knowledge and passion for the sciences with others.
assist us with legal matters including the formation of a 501c3 non-profit.
help with educational program & product development along with preparation work on both.
5. Continue to follow us on social media, tell others about us, and purchase things from our retail and online stores
Follow us on social media: By following us on social media, you will get special offers and opportunities.
Spread the word and tell others about us and our mission: Getting the word out about who we are, what we do, and how others can help support our efforts is hugely important to our continued success.
Support us through your purchases at our retail store and online store: Sales from our retail division help support our educational efforts. Plus, unlike most rock shops, we are first and foremost a educational company, not a retail store. As such, even in a retail setting we are educators wanting to teach and inspire "kids of all ages" in the sciences and it shows!
