One Tribe One Day

April 2nd, 2025

We opened our first laboratory on July 6th, 1940, at Yorktown. Then named the Virginia Fisheries Laboratory, the facility was a cooperative venture of W&M and the Virginia Fisheries Commission. We've come a long way since then!

On the 12th anniversary of One Tribe One Day, William & Mary's annual day of giving, we looked back at how coastal and marine sciences have evolved over the years.

Generous philanthropy has helped sustain our work for decades, and we are now in our 85th year of conducting critical research, educating future leaders in coastal and marine sciences and advising policymakers and practitioners within the Commonwealth.

If you missed One Tribe One Day, you can still make a difference! All gifts made to the Batten School & VIMS, regardless of the day, support our efforts to keep marine environments and coastal communities vibrant and healthy. To learn more, visit VIMS.edu/giving or contact Ellen Leverich (emleverich@wm.edu).

Keep scrolling to hear directly from our scientists, students and donors about how private philanthropy fuels discovery and education.

“To support VIMS on One Tribe One Day is an investment in our region. Through its research, restoration efforts, scientific advice, and collaboration with industry, government, and community, VIMS is a critical partner for coastal resiliency. It is an honor to support its transformational impact.”

— Lynn Dillon, VIMS Foundation Board, Development Committee

“Private funding enables us scientists to take risks and be bold in our thinking. Funding helps advance our fundamental understanding of nature and directly benefits our communities. The Virginia Coastal Ocean Observatory addresses a data gap in a critical region of our coastal ocean that’s undergoing rapid change. Our long-term goal is to provide multidisciplinary data to scientists and actionable intelligence to the general public.”

— Dr. Donglai Gong, Associate Professor, Coastal & Ocean Processes

“Private funding has allowed me to expand the scope of my research, partake in professional development opportunities, and network with members of the commercial shellfish industry in Virginia and across the United States.”

— Julia Grenn, Ph.D. Student

“I am excited to have a high-class estuarine/marine research facility right here in Virginia. VIMS extends the body of knowledge we have daily and contributes to our understanding of the world’s water bodies and climate systems. I’m delighted to help the researchers and students have the opportunity to explore, learn, and develop the thinking and technologies that will help guide this little blue ball of a planet into the future.”

— Jerry Samford, VIMS Donor

“Private donations are integral to ESL’s mission to advance ecological monitoring, aquaculture, restoration, and advisory service, especially for activities that are not supported by typical granting agencies. Additionally, donors to the Bonnie Sue Scholarship fund support five interns at ESL every summer for training in marine science and alumni have gone onto jobs in local industry, government agencies, K-12 education, and advanced degrees.”

— Dr. Stacy Krueger-Hadfield, Assistant Director, VIMS Eastern Shore Laboratory

“For the past fifteen years, private funding has allowed us to bring thousands of children to VIMS for experiential summer camps. The students that have attended these camps report that the experiences greatly impacted their trajectories to pursue science or environmental work for their future careers.”

— Dr. Sarah Nuss, Education Coordinator, CBNERR-VA

“Private funding supercharges our oyster disease research program. It allows us to move quickly to answer urgent questions, and to pursue bold ideas with pilot experiments and analyses that pave the way for successful grant proposals. It’s the most important and impactful program support we have.”

— Dr. Ryan Carnegie, Professor, Shellfish Pathology

“My inspiration for supporting VIMS is due to the dedicated efforts and practices to sustain healthy water quality in the Chesapeake Bay. Without water quality you have nothing.”

— Amelia Ann Dick, VIMS Donor

“Thanks to the private Innovation Funds my group at VIMS has received, we’ve been able to continue to enhance our daily Chesapeake Bay water quality forecasts, which are now routinely used by our many stakeholders, including anglers, aquaculturists, and coastal resource managers, as well as members of the general public looking for daily information regarding beach conditions. These funds were also used to provide our annual hypoxia report card that showed that in 2023 the ‘Dead Zone’ in the Bay was one of the smallest ever recorded, due to a combination of dry conditions and reduced nutrient pollution.”

— Dr. Marjorie Friedrichs, Professor, Coastal & Ocean Processes

“Each year, the VIMS Outreach group provides over 160 educational programs to enhance science literacy and serve our communities - including our annual Marine Science Day open house event, behind-the-scenes tours of campus, public lecture series, fair and festival exhibits, and more. These events reach over 30,000 members of our community annually - throughout the commonwealth and beyond - and are funded exclusively through generous contributions from private philanthropy and support from local businesses and community partners!”

— Kristen Sharpe, Assistant Director, Outreach & Engagement

“The use of restored habitats by fishes can be a valuable tool to evaluate the ecosystem-level impacts of restoration efforts. Private funding has given my colleagues and me the unique opportunity to combine multiple sampling methodologies that provide potentially different perspectives of fish communities to better understand and document the true impact of large-scale restoration efforts on biodiversity.”

— Dr. Jan McDowell, Associate Professor, Natural Resources

“Private funding has impacted me in two big ways over the years: First, by allowing me to attend Estuary Explorers summer camp when I was 12 years old and sparking my interest in marine science. Second, by empowering us to continue hosting summer camps for 3rd-8th graders to help ignite and continue their own marine science interests.”

— Matthew Thayer, Marine Education Specialist, CBNERR-VA

"Your support fuels our innovation. This year, we are developing a new best practice for measuring calcification rates of estuarine animals. We will be able to apply this method to investigate resilience in coastal environments. We are developing tools to address environmental vulnerabilities, like sensitive populations; to provide translational science in support of restoration and aquaculture of benthic macrofauna (e.g., hard clam); to connect global and local drivers of environmental change, like coastal/ocean acidification."

— Dr. Emily Rivest, Associate Professor, Ecosystem Health

Lynn Dillon

Donglai Gong

Julia Grenn

Jerry Samford

Stacy Krueger-Hadfield

Sarah Nuss

Ryan Carnegie

Amy Dick

Marjy Friedrichs

OTOD Sharpe

Jan McDowell

Matthew Thayer

Emily Rivest