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Blog Entries - positive youth development

NRF Announces 2024 Special Grant and Trustee Grant Recipients

The National Recreation Foundation is pleased to announce its 2024 Special Grant and Trustee Grant recipients. More than $1.38K was distributed to 41 organizations across 23 states. NRF is proud to invest in these

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A group of children stand together outside and smile at the camera

Building Empathy Through Youth Recreation

Empathy is the human trait of understanding the feelings of someone else and experiencing those emotions on some level as your own. Empathy is critical to our collective hopes for creating a more just and sustainable

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Manny Almonte Awarded NRF’s 2023 Crawford Prize

"We all belong outdoors. We all want to be seen. We all want to be heard. We all want to be understood. When we create spaces for that to happen and we use nature to activate all of our senses and to remove the focus

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A child works in a notebook while laying in gradd

Green Schoolyards are on the Rise

The green schoolyards movement is growing. A green schoolyard is an outdoor space that supports a school’s mission to help kids learn and grow through instruction, exploration, and play. There’s no one correct

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a young person sits on a horse with two staff members on either side
Photo courtesy of Hands and Hearts for Horses

Equine Connections Promote Youth Development Outcomes

There are so many different ways to promote positive youth development. Some youth programs focus on sports, while others emphasize camping, and still others center around art or science. What most youth development

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A group of youth smile and wave while wearing masks
Photo courtesy of the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Foundation

Grantee Spotlight: Jackie Joyner-Kersee Foundation

Jackie Joyner-Kersee is one of the greatest American athletes of all time. She competed in the heptathlon and the long jump in four Olympic games, winning six medals. But before she became a track and field legend,

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