By Antonio Maldonado-Lopez | Board Secretary, PHA Pterocarpus Forest, Inc.
Dear Friend of the Forest:
As we enter the second quarter of 2022, this project has continued to draw support from generous supporters in the community and on the Board of Directors. The tour application, the heart of the project, was inaugurated late last year and, we are happy to report, has worked without any glitches and has been a great success.
As you may recall, the heart of the project, Enable an Encounter with a Rare Pterocarpus Forest, was to create a dual language app that included visuals and sound, synced to new interpretative signage. This would provide the Forest visitor with more dynamic content and timely information, be it a physical or virtual visit. Our main goal has been to facilitate a more complete learning experience from a walk within this fragile, rare, enchanting ecosystem, and this project has proven to reach said goal.
On our social media (Facebook, Instagram, Trip Advisor and Google My Business, primarily), comments about visits to the Forest have mostly been overwhelmingly positive. Additionally, since the inception of the app and the colorful bilingual signage, most of the positive feedback has included positive remarks about these amazing features of the Forest.
Another indicator of the value of the app and signage is an uptick in donations made by individuals who cite their visit to the Forest when making their gifts, and the number of gifts made directly through the app when people are exiting the Pterocarpus Forest.
Not unexpectedly, the number of visitors has increased significantly. While the reduced impact of the pandemic is a contributing factor, we also believe that maintaining significant and consistent visibility on social media, in which we extoll the Forest’s nature, value and accessibility, has helped to spur that increase - and will continue to do so.
In sum, we are making continued progress toward being an important and unique open air classroom for environmental education for the region and for Puerto Rico, serving thousands of residents and visitors to the Islands alike.
The content of the app will be reviewed in mid-2022 to see if any modifications or improvements can be made.
In the interim, the overall direction and content of the project have been under review by the Board now that its principle goal has been achieved. The Encounter project needs to reflect the next stages in our plan for growth and permanence. We will keep you informed of our thinking.
Thank you for your support and generosity! And please visit the Forest and use the App if you have not already done so! The link is provided below.
Links:
By Antonio Maldonado-Lopez | Board Secretary, PHA Pterocarpus Forest, Inc.
By Antonio Maldonado-Lopez | Board Secretary, PHA Pterocarpus Forest, Inc.
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