Your Family's Outdoors, Forever

As parents, hiking — even if you have a squirming toddler in a carrier — is a great way for your family to connect to each other and to the outdoors. You’re preparing them to love and appreciate our natural resources.

Parents also have another task: planning for the kids’ future by writing a will. Just like you prepare for a hike, you can prepare for the future of trails. 

Please consider profoundly connecting your family to our trails and public lands by including Washington Trails Association in your estate plan. You don’t need to be wealthy; you just have to want to help secure the future of Washington's trails for your loved ones and others.

Perhaps you have already named WTA as a beneficiary in your will. If you have, please let us know so that we can include you in our Legacy Circle of donors and properly honor your intentions.

If you are still working on your will, here are some pointers. 

1. Not sure how to get started? You can download our free estate planning kit. 
2. See an example from one family on that same page.
3. Adding one sentence to your will would add WTA:

"I hereby give, devise and bequeath ___________ ($______(specific dollar amount)____, AND/OR ____ percent of the residue of my estate AND/OR real estate located at __________) to Washington Trails Association, a nonprofit Washington corporation exempt from federal taxation under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, currently located at 705 Second Ave., Suite 300, Seattle, WA 98104, federal tax identification number: 91-0900134."

When you take your kids hiking, they are learning to have fun outdoors, along with gaining important lessons of environmental stewardship, appreciation for gorgeous landscapes and the joy of reaching the top of a hike. Just by hiking with your kid, you are supporting WTA’s mission to "mobilize hikers and everyone who loves the outdoors to explore, steward and champion trails and public lands."

Your kid is part of “everyone” in our mission. A decade or two in the future, we hope that your young adult continues to get outdoors — and we hope that our work helps make that possible. WTA supports getting kids outside by guiding parents, by supporting youth leaders  through the Outdoor Leadership Training school, and by providing gear lending libraries. 

Joining WTA’s Legacy Circle helps ensure that the trails your children and grandchildren will explore are as vibrant and accessible as they are today – or even more so. By making this thoughtful choice now, you become a guardian of tomorrow's public lands, a benevolent elder for countless future explorers.

Learn more about our Legacy Circle by visiting wta.org/legacy and exploring the “Popular Gifts” section. You can also email membership@wta.org or call 206-557-3404.

Photo by Jae Yong