The Rasmuson Foundation awarded Bethel Search and Rescue with an emergency grant of $5,000 this week to help the group charter flights to survey the frozen Kuskokwim River and monitor the ice road.
For decades, the all-volunteer group partnered with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to conduct aerial surveys over the Kuskokwim River to make sure it was safe to travel, and the agency didn’t charge for those flights. Then the federal government shut down. It’s expensive to charter flights, with the going rate at $1,000 per hour. BSAR relies on donations for its operations, which average around $60,000 per year.
Meanwhile, Bethel Community Service Foundation will give BSAR almost $4,000 for its part in the #BethelGives fundraiser, which took place in November 2018.