PELHAM, Ala. (WIAT) — The Alabama Wildlife Center is expanding its outreach.

Over the summer, CBS 42 reported on efforts to raise $50,000 to launch the “Nature for All Initiative,” which provides free onsite and offsite wildlife birds of prey programs to Title 1 schools in Alabama.

The effort successfully exceeded its fundraising goal and hosted its first school last Wednesday, where Alabama Wildlife Center Executive Director Chris Sykes said those 150 fourth graders from Hueytown Intermediate School became lifelong lovers of birds and wildlife. 

“We had five kids come up to us at the end of it and say ‘We want to work with birds. We want to work with wildlife,’” Sykes said. “And that is really the impact we are trying to make. It makes that difference and changes in young people’s lives.”

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