Guide Relief Program Seeks to Expand Grants and Mental Health Services to Fishing Guides Nationwide

Guide Relief Program Seeks to Expand
Grants and Mental Health Services
to Fishing Guides Nationwide

Make a tax-deductible donation between now and December 31 and Orvis will match it.

BOZEMAN, MT (December, 2022) – Fishing guides are the backbone and the very face of the recreational fishing industry, a distinction earned from thousands of hours spent coaching and educating anglers from all walks of life each and every season. They are the ambassadors of the sport and the gatekeepers of our angling resources. It’s a rewarding but demanding job.
 
How long is a fishing guide’s day? Surely, it’s much longer than the hours spent on the water with their clients. The nonstop communication and logistical efforts with customers, gear wrangling, gassing up, meal prep, drive time and end-of-day gear maintenance stack up to make a guide day anything but a 9-5’er, and many seasonal guides go hard for dozens – sometimes hundreds – of days in a row. Days off are precious, unpaid, and often full of provisioning, boat and equipment maintenance, bill paying, personal relationship mending, and everything else a small business owner riding razor thin margins must deal with. While most guides enjoy what they do for a living, the demands are stressful and often overwhelming.
 
As a group, professional fishing guides are prone to a variety of social and economic stressors and mental health issues. Established in 2020 by Mollie Simpkins and KynsLee Scott, the Guide Relief Program (GRP) acknowledges this fact. Its simple mission is to lend meaningful support to these angling ambassadors and resource protectors on and off the water.
 
“Our goal is simple, but our task is challenging,” says Simpkins. “The GRP exists to take care of the people who take care of the resources every angler enjoys. We do this in a variety of ways. We were born out of COVID-19, helping fishing guides navigate and access the complicated and rapidly changing forms of assistance available to them. We’ve since expanded our role to offer small but meaningful grants to fishing guides dealing with all manner of personal and professional crises. These hardships can be related to things like last summer’s historic flooding in Montana or the devastation unleashed by storms like Hurricane Ian, but we don’t limit our assistance to guides impacted by natural disasters alone. Life comes at fishing guides fast and hard, which is why facilitating access to no-cost mental health services also lies at the core of our mission.”
 
Through a partnership with BetterHelp, the GRP offers approved guides two months of access to comprehensive mental health services at no cost. The 100% confidential program is available to anyone who can prove they are a guide. Once approved, guides are matched with a licensed, board-certified therapist according to specific needs and preferences.
 
Because program demand is so high, the GRP is seeking tax-deductible donations that will help expand the number of guides that can be served.

 

DONATE HERE

 

Give Now and Orvis will Match Your Donation
 
It costs $260 to provide mental health benefits for each guide who needs them. Help us help more people. Now through the end of the year, whatever you can afford to donate will go even farther – twice as far, in fact – due to the generosity and stewardship of Orvis. The company will match all donations received by the GRP through December 31, 2022, dollar for dollar, up to a maximum contribution of $10,000. These matching funds compound the impact of your donation, while making whatever you can afford to give more meaningful and important than ever.
 
Learn more about the Guide Relief Program, hear stories of those we’ve helped, and see how you fit in at guidereliefprogram.org. Join the conversation and track our progress together on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

About the Guide Relief Program
The Guide Relief Program was created during the global COVID-19 crisis to support Montana’s fishing guides, fly and conventional, by providing critical information and resources regarding unemployment, grants and loans, and financial relief. In doing so, we realized there was no social safety net in place for guides. With the future in mind, the Guide Relief Program will continue working to ensure a better future for fishing guides throughout the nation, by supporting them on and off the water. The Guide Relief Program is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit.
 
Media Contact
Guide Relief Program
Mollie Simpkins, Co-Founder & Executive Director
mollie@guidereliefprogram.org