Thank you all! We did it!

Thanks to the generous support of 162 Backers totaling $8,535 and a $10,000 grant from the CUNY Advanced Science Research Center's Joint Seed Program awarded to my mentor, Dr. Naro-Maciel, we have reached the goal of $17,000 to fund my research plan this summer! This money will go towards paying undergraduate research assistants, purchasing field supplies necessary to collect water samples and continue our on-going capture-mark-recapture study of freshwater turtles!

How did it happen?

Over 60 days of numerous postings to Facebook and Twitter, Backers were inspired to make donation ranging from $5 to $300. It was amazing to see how many people were willing to help the cause by "sharing" my posts to their walls, posting the project link to any Facebook groups that allowed it, and of course making donations. Thank you to everyone who used his or her personal accounts and time to spread the word!

I was very lucky to have particular people providing the extra support needed to spread the word to a larger audience. First, I want to thank Maya Shikhman for editing the website text and Lab Notes! Second, I would like to thank the Brooklyn Bird Club for deeming my project the conservation initiative to which their members made pledges to as part of their annual Bird-A-Thon fundraiser, especially Sandra Paci who lead the charge! Members of the bird club donated over $650 dollars! Lastly, and probably most important, I want to thank Marilyn Zayfert, president of Illuminet Digital Marketing for volunteering her time to putting together press releases, e-blasting her lists and posting on her website, StatenIslandNYCliving.com. I would not have been able to achieve my goal without this extra level attention! And of course, thank you to my mentor, Dr. Eugenia Naro-Maciel, for her continued support!

Media coverage played an important roll in spreading the word as well. Almost immediately after sending out my first posting requests from media outlets began to roll in. Notably, DNAinfo.com, NY1, 1010 Wins Radio and a wonderful story about my career thus far in the Staten Island Advance covered the crowd-funding effort.

What now?

Once the official pledge drive is over, Experiment.com will send a check to the Research Foundation of CUNY (RF-CUNY). This is the organization that CUNY uses to collect funding for sponsored research projects and distribute payments to research assistants and companies used by CUNY researchers. This means that I never actually see the check and there is complete accountability for how the collected money is spent.

The research season will begin at the end of June and continue through August. We are planning on collecting eDNA samples from each of our study ponds at least four times during the course of the summer. The research team will also be out trapping turtles and collecting data on turtle health, demography and feeding ecology almost every week during this period. Analysis of the data will take place in the Fall of 2015.

Big thanks to everyone for their part in making my dreams come true and allowing me to conduct this vital research on Staten Island's pond ecosystems!

Please come back to this site periodically to read updates as the research progresses!