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Dear Friend, I am writing to you at a time of great need for the Rice Museum. It is no secret that this is a challenging moment for nonprofits. Today, we turn to you, our community, for the strength and support to endure. The Rice Museum Board of Directors has come together to offer an exceptional challenge to our members, supporters, and friends. For every dollar you donate to the Museum through January 31, 2021, the Board will match your donation 1:1 up to $20,000 to double the impact of your contribution to the Rice. This extraordinary opportunity paves the way for the Museum to raise $40,000, which will cover the Museum’s day-to-day operations and recovery expenses as we look to reopen in 2021. Each month the Rice’s operating expenses (salaries, utilities, maintenance, etc.) cost $25,000. That’s before any visitors, students, interns, or volunteers come on site. For nearly 25 years, the Rice Museum has been providing inspiring experiences to the residents of Portland Metro and to visitors from around the world. And as we move through this tough year together, we are thinking about ways to reimagine the Museum in the age of COVID so we emerge a stronger institution that is reflective of community and engages an even broader audience. This year’s closure due to the ongoing COVID-19 situation has placed a financial strain upon the institution unequal to any time in our history, in order to continue being a vital community resource please consider making a donation to the Rice Museum today. Double your impact through the Board Match Challenge, and ensure that your Museum will be waiting for you when you’re ready to come back in 2021.  Your contribution will make it possible for the Museum to continue to offer engagement, fulfillment, and inspiration in 2021. With your help 2021 will be our most successful and engaging year.  Every contribution, of any size, is appreciated. Your gift is 100% tax deductible with 100% of proceeds directly supporting the Museum’s public programs and exhibitions.  Our staff, volunteers, and the Board of directors – everyone here joins me in thanking you for your generous support in our hour of need. Please send your gift today and always let us know if your employer offers matching contributions.  Please help the Rice Museum find the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.   Gratefully,  Aurore Giguet Executive Director  Donate OTHER WAYS TO SUPPORT THE RICE MUSEUM Become a member  Buy a gift membership  Buy a gift certificate that can be used for admission, in our shop, or to pay for future event tickets Volunteer your time Become a sponsor of an exhibition, program, or event Tribute or memorial gifts Give appreciated securities  Gifts through your IRA Bequests and planned giving Schedule a store visit

Join us on Wednesday, October 14 for a live on-line discussion with local amateur paleontologist Greg Carr. Carr is a long-time volunteer with the Rice Museum and a member of the North American Research Group (NARG), a club of amateur paleontologists who scour sedimentary rocks across the western U.S. for fossil remains. A fossil preparation expert, Carr will give a tour of his home lab and talk through the process of how to carefully remove rock to expose the fossil within. Greg and his daughter Gloria discovered Bernie the Thalattosaur, an ancient sea-going reptile, in 2011 in a roadcut in central Oregon. Carr worked carefully over 6 1/2 years to prepare the specimen, using many of the same tools you’ll see in this demonstration. He then used a 3D scanner and 3D printer to produce a life-size replica of Bernie’s skeleton, which now hangs from the rafters of the Rice Museum of Rocks and Minerals. Carr has also loaned numerous fossils to the museum, designed, built, and donated hands-on displays, and volunteered as a fossil preparator and consultant, recently including the conservation and display of a huge brontothere skull, and a delicate crinoid fossil plate. He can frequently be found at the Museum’s “Mystery Mineral Day” events identifying potential fossils brought in by visitors. This event is FREE but registration is required to receive login information.   Date & TimeWednesday, Oct 14, 2020 12:00 PM – 1:00 PMA LIMITED NUMBER OF RESERVATIONS ARE AVAILABLE    The Rice Museum will offer additional content throughout the day on our Youtube channel and across our social media accounts. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram.  RESERVE YOUR SPOT NOW

Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks and Minerals is excited to offer limited capacity programs to expand access to our educational tours for those participating in distance learning and smaller educational programs this school year. These tours will hit all of the same Next Generation Science Standards that our typical school tours fulfill, and be lead by the same enthusiastic group of educators. Content covered is appropriate for grades 1-6.  Tours have limited availability so make sure to reserve your date. Students Learn about: The rock cycle How minerals form Volcanoes The scientific beginning of the universe Fossils and ancient life Pricing: Limited capacity of 10 attendees (adults and children) $75 Restrictions: A minimum of 1 adult for 9 students is required to participate. Groups may be smaller and have fewer students and more adults with a maximum of 10 attendees total per group.   Questions: Please contact Lena Toney.

Make your reservations now to experience our newest exhibit in the Master Gallery – The Mineral Adventures of Bruce Carter. It’s a two-case extravaganza of mineral beauty, with several notable specimens hailed by experts as tops in the world. Schedule your reservation here Bruce has been a life-long mineral collector. Growing up in New Jersey and Connecticut, he often scoured the local pegmatites and garnet-rich metamorphic rocks for interesting crystals. He received a BS in Geology from Earlham College and then earned his Master’s degree in Volcanology from the University of Montana, where he mapped Eocene age extrusive rocks in the northern Rockies. After graduating, he worked for years in minerals exploration in the Western USA, Mexico, and Canada, as well as mapping coal reserves in the Illinois Basin. His final three years of exploration were in helicopter-supported remote camps in the Alaska Range. Sadly, plummeting metals prices and the advent of remote satellite reconnaissance finally brought an end to Bruce’s professional mineral adventures. Shortly thereafter, fate brought Bruce to Los Angeles, where he was accepted into the apprentice program at the Directors Guild of America. Since graduating from the program he’s worked on many film & TV shows, both in the United States and abroad. He is currently a television and film producer here in Portland; however, he maintains an avid interest in rocks, minerals, and all things geologic. Earlier this year his collection was exhibited at the world-renowned Tucson Gem & Mineral Show.

Good news! During the time of COVID-19 we are now able to take appointments to visit the museum gift shop. We hope to open the museum galleries in the near future. Thank you for choosing to support the Rice Museum! Our Museum Store offers a wide variety of rocks, minerals, fluorescent minerals, thunder eggs, petrified wood, jewelry, fossils, books, and posters for collectors of all ages and interests. Schedule a store visit

As the Rice Museum works towards being able to reopen our galleries to the public we welcome your input to help us in our mission to engage, inspire, and educate generations on the splendor and complexity of our Earth. Please take our survey to help us make everyone feel safe as we reopen. Visitor Safety Input Survey

Over the years the patio sank so much that it was a tripping hazard. The Terra Firma team gently pumped in fast-setting foam to slowly lift the concrete. Once the project was complete, the tripping hazard was mitigated and only a few cracked tiles remain to fix. Patio Lift Completed with Grant from Kinsman Foundation The Rice Museum recently completed work on another infrastructure project thanks to a generous grant from the Kinsman Foundation. This project involved gently “lifting” the back patio up to three inches in places, using the ultra-cool services of local contractor Terra Firma Foundation Systems. The Kinsman Foundation is dedicated to preserving historicalstructures, and since we are on the National Historic Registry, we fit theirdefinition and were eligible for funding. The back patio has subsided over theyears for unknown reasons – perhaps groundwater flow shifted, or one of theunderground cisterns has an issue. Whatever the cause, the fix was to drillsmall holes through the concrete and inject fast-hardening polyurethane foamunderneath. Once the foam is injected to the right level, the drilled holes getrepaired and all is well. The trip hazard is gone, and wheelchairs no longerface an impasse.  Special thanks to Kinsman and Terra Firma for completing the project on time and on budget. We look forward to a long and healthy relationship!

The Museum successfully completed a Pollinator grant project this spring thanks to the generous support of the Tualatin Soil & Water Conservation District. Funded by the Tualatin Watershed Improvement Grant (TWIG) program, the museum’s event planning and maintenance team planted about 40 different rose bushes and 35 lavender plants encircling the back public area. The $1200 grant provided much-needed pollination sources for local bees and butterflies, as well as added color and variability to the landscape. The addition of about 75 pollination sources should immediately help boost various honey bee populations, for example. Other beneficial insect species should also benefit. “In time, the back area should be an even more attractive setting for spring weddings,” according to Vicki Botieff, the museum’s Events Coordinator. One new concern that popped up recently is the resurgent population of black-tailed deer. With the museum closed due to COVID-19 safety precautions, local deer have been much more visible this spring. Without a full yard of school children eating lunch, the quiet grounds have invited more local wildlife in general. The deer can be voracious rose bush consumers, but hopefully the bushes will survive and thrive. So far all of the new plantings persist, but many have been severely “pruned” by the deer. While the museum remains closed until further notice to help slow the spread of COVID-19 please consider helping us get through this challenging time with a gift today. Donate

Dear Friends,  First and foremost, the entire staff of the Rice Museum, and I hope that you, your family, and your friends safe and healthy. Nine weeks ago, we shut our doors to the public. I personally never thought that I would be writing a letter in the middle of a world crisis. Yet, here we are.  As we prepare to once again welcome you again we need your help to make sure that happens.  Your support of the Rice Museum is critical. As a non-profit organization, we rely on ticket sales, education program fees, gift shop sales, events like Thunder Egg Stravaganza, and donations to survive. With our museum closed almost all sources of income have stopped until we can again function at full capacity. We urgently need financial support. Since closing our doors on March 15 nearly $175,000 has been lost in revenue so far. That is 34% of our total budget. Priding ourselves on fiscal responsibility we have taken measures to mitigate the loss of income and put the organization in the best position to be able to re-open when it’s safe to do so. Some of these measures have been heartbreaking as we cut expenses. Sadly, there are no guarantees it will be enough without support from people like you in our community. The American Alliance of Museums estimates that as an industry museums are losing 33 million dollars per day due to closures —  that 30% of museums may never reopen — and those that do will be changed institutions at risk of closing within two years. With your help, we won’t become one of those statistics.  Despite the ongoing crisis, our efforts to inspire people of all ages to learn more about earth science and prove meaningful experiences have not diminished since we have been closed. We created a new education campaign “What on Earth?” where we have collected educational resources and activities for kids and families at home. Included in this initiative are our own video activities and lessons, and highlights of our collection. We continue to add new material as the COVID-19 crisis continues.  The Rice Museum has been a vital resource in our community for decades. The Rice family gifted the Museum to the community with a vision of engaging and inspiring generations about the complexities of our Earth. Built around a world-class collection our educational programs have grown throughout the years and often fill a critical need supporting both public and private education. This current Coronavirus crisis brings to light the need for evolving and relevant science education. We can help by growing our educational programming and broadening our reach through technology, video education, and portable earth science exhibits. For the Museum to survive and thrive in the future, we plan to grow educational offerings, update exhibitions and enhance outside spaces.  We need you — will you help? Together we can continue to make a difference. The Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks and Minerals is an essential part of the cultural and science education experience for our region. We have established a COVID-19 Relief Fund. Your gift will help close the gap and allow us to reopen. With your help, we will return to be a cultural cornerstone and inspire the next generation of earth scientists.  Always grateful,  Garret  If you are able to help the Rice Museum right now, please consider making an online gift today.