Dear friends,
Last weekend, the board of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation convened to make a difficult decision. After much deliberation, we decided to cancel the 2020 Heart Mountain Pilgrimage. The Pilgrimage is our favorite time of the year, and we will miss seeing all of you. But your safety, and the safety of our members, supporters, and families comes first.
If you already registered for this year’s Pilgrimage, a staff member will contact you and we will issue a full refund of your registration fees shortly. The Holiday Inn in Cody will automatically cancel any room reservations made by phone, at no charge to you. If you made room reservations online or through a third-party vendor, you will need to arrange for cancelation through those systems.
The current pandemic has disrupted our routines and taken away many of the things we most looked forward to. However, I hope it will not take away our sense of community. We may not be able to gather together this summer, but we can still look out for one another. I encourage you to reach out to your friends from Pilgrimages past and let them know you’re here. At times like these, simply connecting can mean a lot.
This crisis will have lasting effects well beyond the cancelation of the Pilgrimage. We know it will negatively impact the summer tourist season in Wyoming and revenues at Heart Mountain Interpretive Center. I am exceedingly proud of the staff we have built at the center. To help protect their positions in this difficult time, I am donating the amount I would have spent on my Pilgrimage registration to the Foundation. If you are in a position to do the same, please consider joining me.
Stay tuned for information about next year’s Heart Mountain Pilgrimage, coming up July 22-24, 2021. Many of this year’s guest have committed to returning, and we are already planning for an amazing event. Keep safe, and we will see you next summer.
Shirley Ann Higuchi
Chair, Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation