Donna, a Special Birthday Card and the Birth of the Bear Center - UPDATE April 8, 2023
Donna Rogers working on the flower garden at the Bear Center
The day started with Donna giving me a super birthday card and showing me a surprise that I hope no one thinks I had put up. But with Donna doing it, I felt her love and support so much that I took her to breakfast at the Grand Ely Lodge. Donna is my longest volunteer, nearly 44 years, for my mission. When the Bear Center came to be in 2007, she became the volunteer janitor and I became her assistant.
Happy Birthday Lynn Rogers
Happy Birthday Lynn Rogers
But before that, the Bear Center needed a nudge to gain momentum, I asked her a little favor. "Honey, if we take a little chance, I think we can start the Bear Center. If we mortgage everything we have and make an unsecured loan to the Bear Center, we can get it started. If it fails, we’ll be bankrupt; but if we work hard to make it a success, the Bear Center can pay us back and we can pay the bank back over the years." She knew how badly I wanted it. She said “Okay.”
Construction began, people became founding members. It opened in May 2007. Summers were good but repaying the loan in winter was a bit of a struggle until January of 2010. Lily the Bear created a worldwide phenomenon of love and learning. Questions flowed in on Facebook. I’d always wanted to change people’s view of bears from the old fear-based beliefs to what Lily was showing the world day and night. I began the daily updates. People began sending donations that I hadn’t thought to ask for with the Bear Center being in need. Grateful, I said a heartfelt thank you and put up a thermometer showing the Bear Center debt. Without a single request for donations, Lily Fans and a large donor got on board for the mission. They paid off the remaining $700,000 debt in two years.
Through it all, Donna had faith. She became the volunteer gardener and put her heart into creating a beautiful flower garden beside the highway to catch the eye of drivers. The Bear Center became self-sustaining and more--all because Donna did what many would not. Thank you, Honey, and thank you for the nice birthday card today.
And thank you Lily Fans for all you did to bring it to fruition and support the Bear Center’s mission for bears that Popular Science Magazine recently named the number one science center to visit in Minnesota. With a wife like Donna and all who have joined together to bring everything to fruition, this educational mission has proven to be strong and sustainable. And now we see the legacy fund growing toward the future goal of 20 million to be preserved, only using the interest in perpetuity to expand educational outreach through visits to schools, classes visiting the Bear Center, Zoom technology to the nation and the world, and reaching out in any way that technology and educators will make possible.
Thank you for all you do,
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center
