Ask any student who has been to Guelph Lake Nature Centre who they remember most from their visit and many will recite one name before all others: ‘Dan, Dan the Nature Man.’
Dan Schneider, a recently retired senior resource interpreter with the Grand River Conservation Authority may not remember the names of all 600,000 students who have spent a day out at the lake, but many of those students could tell you about the impact he’s had on their lives.
After 30 years, Schneider decided to hang up his hiking boots in June, but not before wanting to leave his own mark on the Guelph Lake landscape.
The GRCA is in the middle of a $3 million dollar fundraising campaign to replace the aging Guelph Lake Nature Centre with a new 8,000 square foot purpose-built outdoor education facility within Guelph Lake Park. Schneider wanted to ensure there would be a special place that students and visitors to the new complex could call their own.
“I want to create a space that inspires students for the next thirty years,” Schneider in a press release.
The ‘Join Dan’ crowdfunding initiative will run until Dec. 23, through a new Indiegogo campaign set up by the Grand River Conservation Foundation that will channel funds to this new learning space.
For more information about the ‘Join Dan’ campaign or information on the new Guelph Lake Nature Centre Complex, visit www.grcf.ca or contact Cam Linwood at clinwood@grandriver.ca.
