DONATIONS PROGRAM
The donations program has been very successful in raising money to accomplish Foundation goals that are not funded by user fees or grants, such as renovating our facility.
In 2000, we embarked on an ambitious, multi-year renovation plan for our coastal campus in Key Largo, Florida.
MRDF took over the site of a burned out restaurant/marina complex in 1985. We turned a boat storage barn into dorm rooms and offices, used a restaurant building for a cafeteria and turned a tiki hut into an outdoor meeting area. We also made use of a floating home, tearing down interior walls, to create a lecture area. These facilities, primitive as they were, supported the MarineLab Environmental Education Program and the MarineLab Undersea Laboratory with little trouble for 18 years.
Since 2000, we have:
- Turned our chickee hut into a permanent, white-metal roofed structure known as the "Pavilion";
- Renovated the oldest building to bring it up to code and included two rooms for visiting scientists;
- Replaced our old houseboat with a new "Floating Conference Center," complete with two classrooms and state of the art LCD projectors;
- Gutted and renovated both teaching labs;
- Renovated bathrooms behind the cafeteria
- Replaced one of the docks in the boat basin
- Replaced Privateers with Twin Vee power catamarans for added comfort for our MarineLab students.
We are currently in the process of renovating another dock area but the majority of the remodeling has been completed. We are now turning our energies toward improving our energy and water conservation systems on site.