September 30, 2025

I am writing to you on behalf of All Aboard Washington (AAWA) with an appeal for your financial support during our fall fundraising campaign. 

While we are a volunteer-led organization, we need to raise funds to pay for the cost of maintaining our communications and administrative infrastructure, dialogue with our legislators, and community organizing activities, all in the interest of promoting passenger rail as a means of better public transportation. We made some decisions at our October board meeting that will reduce our annual expenses by 20%, but we still need to increase our revenues if we are to meet our 2025 expenses and have enough to carry us into 2026.

For more than 40 years, All Aboard Washington (AAWA) has championed the interests of Washington citizens for the improvement and expansion of passenger rail services. The Amtrak Cascades service between Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, BC, and towns in between is a daily testament to AAWA's success at organizing community support for passenger rail services in the Puget Sound region.

While AAWA continues to press for more frequent, reliable, and on-time service on the Amtrak Cascades corridor, AAWA is also putting energy into advocating for restoration of passenger rail service through central Washington including Cle Elum, Ellensburg, Yakima, Tri-Cities, and Spokane via Stampede Pass. Passenger service via Stampede Pass was terminated in October 1981.  AAWA is collaborating with other passenger rail advocates in Washington, Idaho, and Montana to make restoration of passenger rail between Seattle and Chicago via the Yakima Valley and southern Montana a reality. A key element of that collaboration is mobilizing citizen awareness and engagement  in promoting the  benefits of passenger rail through central Washington.

The work we do daily in support of passenger rail has a cost. We cannot continue without your financial support. We have a $30,000 goal for this fundraising campaign. We are already off to a good start. A generous donor has offered to match all donations received by December 31, 2025 up to a maximum of $7,000. Please help us amplify your voice in support of improved and expanded passenger rail service in Washington state by donating to AAWA.

Please make a recurring or one-time donation online at https://www.aawa.us/support/, or mail your check to

All Aboard Washington
P.O. Box 70381
Seattle, WA 98127-0381

With gratitude,

Harvey Bowen
President