{"id":15609,"date":"2012-07-27T07:00:08","date_gmt":"2012-07-27T12:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=15609"},"modified":"2012-07-27T11:36:59","modified_gmt":"2012-07-27T16:36:59","slug":"why-texas-parks-and-wildlife-is-trying-to-sell-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/07\/27\/why-texas-parks-and-wildlife-is-trying-to-sell-out\/","title":{"rendered":"How Texas Parks and Wildlife Is Trying to Sell Out"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_15612\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/07\/27\/why-texas-parks-and-wildlife-is-trying-to-sell-out\/120611-bastrop-fire-damage-by-mose-buchele-580x399\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-15612\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-15612\" title=\"120611-bastrop-fire-damage-by-mose-buchele-580x399\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/07\/120611-bastrop-fire-damage-by-mose-buchele-580x399-300x206.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"206\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/07\/120611-bastrop-fire-damage-by-mose-buchele-580x399-300x206.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/07\/120611-bastrop-fire-damage-by-mose-buchele-580x399.jpeg 580w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Photo by Mose Buchele\/StateImpact Texas<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is looking for corporate sponsors.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Last year\u2019s <a href=\"stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/droughtstateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/drought\">devastating drought and wildfires<\/a> led to fewer visitors and less revenue at state parks. In December the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tpwd.state.tx.us\/\">Texas Parks &amp; Wildlife Department<\/a>\u00a0turned to the public for help, hoping to raise\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tpwd.state.tx.us\/business\/donations\/\">more than $4 million<\/a>\u00a0in donations. But since then, they\u2019ve only received half that amount, and recent budget cuts have taken away <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chron.com\/news\/houston-texas\/article\/State-seeks-corporate-partners-to-boost-parks-3737959.php\">over a hundred million dollars from the department<\/a>. To help close this funding gap, the department is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tpwd.state.tx.us\/newsmedia\/releases\/?req=20120725c&amp;nrtype=all&amp;nrspan=2012&amp;nrsearch=\">now looking for corporate sponsors<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Park officials say they\u2019re looking to partner with banks, hotels and sporting-goods stores. Soon, you could be the proud owner of an official Texas Parks &amp; Wildlife cooler.\u00a0The corporate sponsorship was approved during the last legislature.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is the first time, as far as we know, that a state agency has done this,\u201d Darcy Bontempo, the department\u2019s marketing director,\u00a0says.<\/p>\n<p>So does this mean someday soon a visitor to\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/garnerstatepark.com\/\">Garner State Park<\/a>\u00a0might see a sign saying, \u201cBrought to you by McDonald\u2019s\u201d?<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Absolutely not, says Bontempo.\u00a0\u201cThat will not happen,\u201d she says. \u201cOf course we\u2019ve gotten that question and I understand those concerns. That\u2019s why we\u2019ve worked so carefully to make sure that the manner in which we offer this opportunity is clearly defined.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But you need to move fast if you want the Texas Parks &amp; Wildlife stamp of approval for your business. The agency is only accepting proposals until August 30. And it&#8217;s going to cost you.\u00a0Sponsorships\u00a0start at $100,000 and go up from there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last year\u2019s devastating drought and wildfires led to fewer visitors and less revenue at state parks. In December the\u00a0Texas Parks &amp; Wildlife Department\u00a0turned to the public for help, hoping to raise\u00a0more than $4 million\u00a0in donations. But since then, they\u2019ve only received half that amount, and recent budget cuts have taken away over a hundred million [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":15612,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57],"tags":[90],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15609"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15609"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15615,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15609\/revisions\/15615"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}