# Recreational Underwater Sports Society, Inc.



## JoinRUSS (Mar 9, 2014)

Recreational Underwater Sports Society, Inc. will work to address underwater environment concerns such as conservation, enhancement, maintenance, and protection through efforts of education and programs to benefit communities.

We are a Florida Not-For-Profit Corporation, pending 501(c)3 status.

The community we are dedicated to working is Pensacola, Florida. All of our efforts are to promote our immediate community and then as we grow larger, we will potentially expand chapters to other areas in 2015.

We want to stay focused in our immediate community only, to best serve the area that we all live in.

We believe lionfish are a community problem and are engaging the entire community as the problems affect all that live in the area, either directly, or thru the trickle down effect. 

We look to accomplish this by:

*Monitoring and/or developing natural and artificial reef systems and educate on the findings to include non-native species removal
*Youth Awareness Programs and encourage youth participation through education. The Youth Group is called the RUSS RAYS and open to 6th grade – 12th grade students in the Pensacola, Gulf Breeze and Pensacola Beach areas.
*Educate the public on the importance of our underwater resources and how they affect our local areas and encourage community participation by setting up speaking engagements at area functions to increase awareness
*Meet with, report to, and help local, state, and federal lawmakers establish enforceable legislation to protect these resources as necessary to help protect our waters.

We will fund our programs through donations, the SAVE-A-REEF program, and RUSS Apparel. 



The first programs we look to roll out are the Lionfish Hunting Stipend Program, and also a program working with Fishing Charter Boat Captains. Details for both of these programs will be publicized in April. 

We are having our Launch Party and Inaugural Fundraiser at Seville Quarter, as they have been very kind to donate their facility for this event and understand what our organization is about and how we can benefit Pensacola.


The event is on March 22, 2014 from 4pm to 8pm.


Three Bean Soup! (a local Pensacola band) has donated their time to entertain at the event and we will have raffles and a silent auction, with some beautiful handcrafted pieces, scuba charters and classes, and many other things! 



Come join us and learn more about what we are about! We look forward to meeting you all! 

www.joinruss.org


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