Our Grants

2024 Trustee Grants

Current Year Grant Summary
In 2024, the National Recreation Foundation awarded 33 Trustee Grants totaling $680,000.

Bay Area Wilderness Training

A fiscally sponsored project of Earth Island Institute

  • Website: bawt.org
  • Grant amount: $10,000

Bay Area Wilderness Training (BAWT) recognizes that BIPOC youth and adults have been historically marginalized from outdoor spaces and that barriers to the outdoors (including lack of wilderness skills and knowledge of the outdoors and disadvantaged access to high-quality outdoor camping and hiking gear) continue to impact its local communities. The goal of its Outdoor Leadership Trainings is to widen outdoor skills and knowledge for youth educators and leaders and to provide free gear loans to alleviate expensive gear costs. 

BAWT's Outdoor Leadership Trainings run on a “Train-the-Trainer” model, equipping youth educators with skills needed to promote culturally relevant outdoor education in their own classrooms. Its Frontcountry Leadership Training (FLT) provides training in skills needed to lead a two-day overnight camping trip including equipment use, basic navigation, risk management, and Leave No Trace practices. BAWT’s Wilderness First Aid (WFA) provides basic training in first aid skills that reduce risk and injury outdoors.

Camping & Education Foundation

Camping & Education Foundation

Cincinnati is situated in an area of immense natural beauty, surrounded by the Ohio River and its tributaries, and blanketed by 5,000 acres of parks and preserves. Young people do not need to leave Cincinnati to experience nature, but they need help accessing it. Communities must meet young people where they are and harness the potential of the outdoors to provide them with a deeper connection to the natural world—shaping strong, empathetic, and environmentally conscious leaders in the process. Camping & Education Foundation’s (CEF) Urban Wilderness Program (UWP) is positioned to help make these connections. The program serves youth through immersive outdoor experiences that create self-esteem, independence, grit, and an affinity for nature in a team building environment.

UWP revolves around two main components: a STEM-based boat-building program (which empowers students to help construct beautiful skin-on-frame canoes from start to finish) and local wilderness field trips with school partners. The field trips involve a range of empowering hands-on activities, distilled from the curriculum developed by CEF’s summer camp programs, such as campfire cooking, fire by friction, knot-tying, shelter-making, wildlife identification, knife and ax techniques, and paddling and portaging their very own hand-crafted canoe. Students are pushed to achieve a strong work ethic and embrace challenging tasks from start to finish. With this newfound sense of accomplishment and self-worth, the students’ communities will flourish with young leaders, pushing for a brighter future.

Catalina Island Conservancy

Catalina Island Conservancy

Most Avalon youth spend their lives in the one-square-mile town of Avalon, Calif., without access to nature recreation or science enrichment, despite having over 48,000 acres of land to explore adjacent to their community. Catalina Island Conservancy (CIC) addresses this through its Island Explorers & Garden Explorers programs, which connect Avalon youth to the natural world during the school year.

CIC’s programs offer students the opportunity to experience distinct parts of Catalina Island through field excursions that include hiking and interacting with nature. Students gain knowledge about the 60 species that are endemic to the Island, the importance of all parts of an ecosystem, and CIC’s conservation efforts to protect and preserve the Island. Students are also exposed to different conservation career paths, scientific vocabulary and concepts, and experience using scientific tools to observe nature. By building these connections, CIC hopes to see the youth develop a sense of ownership in conserving ecosystems and protecting the intrinsic value of nature.

 

 

Center for Native American Youth at The Aspen Institute

  • Website: cnay.org
  • Grant amount: $30,000

The Center for Native American Youth (CNAY) at The Aspen Institute is a national education and advocacy organization that works alongside Native youth—ages 24 and under—on reservations, in rural villages and urban spaces across the country to improve their health, safety, and overall well-being. All Native youth deserve to lead full and healthy lives, have equal access to opportunity, draw strength from Native culture, and inspire one another. At CNAY, this is achieved through empowerment and culturally competent methodologies that include leadership, youth-led policy agenda, and youth-led narrative.

CNAY's Brave Heart Fellowship is a six-month fellowship focused on different geographic areas of the United States each year. Through an Indigenous and cultural lens, Brave Heart Fellows grow in advocacy in the protection of traditional lands, waterways, and sacred sites. The program prioritizes intergenerational learning with tribal and community elders and builds coalitions with like-minded experts. Youth leaders implement Community Action Projects, which increase project creation, implementation, and budget management skills. Youth design a project focused on addressing an environmental concern that impacts their communities. These projects will have a specific emphasis on engaging outdoors and fostering intergenerational spaces.

Cheyenne River Youth Project

Cheyenne River Youth Project

Cheyenne River Youth Project (CRYP) was founded in response to the Cheyenne River community’s need for more services to address the ongoing effects of cultural assimilation, colonialism, systemic inequity, and generational poverty that continue to impact Lakota youth today. To help youth heal from this trauma and overcome these seemingly intractable challenges and live a brighter future, CRYP creates access to opportunities where youth can experience nature as their ancestors did and learn about and deepen their understanding of Lakota culture.

CRYP’s Teen Internship Program gives CRYP the opportunity to work one-on-one with teens to build awareness, skills, healthy habits, and confidence in their abilities. CRYP’s approach ensures that it is able to touch all areas of its youth’s lives and strengthen their personal foundations for stronger, more productive futures. Teens can choose from several 50-hour internship tracks offering experiential and classroom learning time that includes a focus on developing critical life and leadership skills. Teens earn a stipend upon successful completion of the program. The internships include Food Sovereignty (learn to plan, plant, grow, harvest, and process food from the garden, while learning about nutrition, staving off diabetes and other diseases, and how to cook the food grown); Native Wellness (through classroom instruction and experiential learning, students learn about fitness, Lakota culture, healthy eating, healthy human relationships, diabetes prevention, drug/alcohol prevention, and more); and Lakota Culture (curriculum teaches about ceremonies, sacred sites, Indigenous foods, how to build a sweat lodge, set up a tipi, tell Lakota stories, and other traditions). Interns attend seasonal camps where they sleep overnight in tipis and engage with the natural world around them.

Chicago Training Center

Chicago Training Center

The Chicago Training Center (CTC) provides avenues for the youth of Chicago to test their mettle and realize their athletic and academic capabilities through the medium of competitive rowing. CTC’s nurturing atmosphere serves as a catalyst for students to attain physical fitness, cultivate teamwork, bolster self-esteem and leadership acumen, and ultimately, to pursue their educational and life aspirations with unwavering determination. CTC continues to prioritize the support and upliftment of the youth in the City of Chicago and is actively strengthening its partnership with two Chicago Park District locations that are facing limitations in terms of resources.

CTC is expanding its programming to reach youth from Davis Square and Cornell Square Park Districts. These parks have been instrumental in providing after-school programs to a considerable number of students. CTC’s primary objective is to introduce these youth to the captivating sport of sculling, while simultaneously offering them invaluable tutoring services and fostering the development of their problem-solving skills.

Chicago Voyagers

Chicago Voyagers

Chicago Voyagers’ (CV) mission is to empower youth impacted by injustices through adventure therapy programs that foster healthy relationships and skills for life success. CV focuses on youth experiencing barriers to success, such as poverty, trauma, special education needs, and racial discrimination, and it prioritizes working with communities that have faced decreases in social safety nets and public programs.

CV partners with more than 20 area schools and community organizations to offer evidence-based experiential outdoor adventure programming, including hiking and backpacking, overnight camping, canoeing, and mountain biking. All adventures include activities designed to engage youth and help them with personal development, exploration, and growth. Programming is strength-based and is focused on four components: relationships, growth zone, mindfulness, and experiential learning. CV’s programming helps youth manage Adverse Childhood Experiences by guiding them to cultivate a resilient, positive, problem-solving attitude, and giving them the tools, skills, and strength to overcome the challenges in their lives.

Compass Rose Education

Compass Rose Education

The climate crisis is a major societal issue impacting communities around the world. Society’s reliance on fossil fuels is contributing to climate change, and finding ways to reduce emissions is necessary. Compass Rose Education is focusing on these climate change issues with its students through the development of its Harvest Environmental Stewards program. The program, which targets youth ages 11-14, focuses on bridging the divide between the need for sustainable energy and 21st-century technology through environmental education and wilderness adventures.

Youth involved in the Harvest Environmental Stewards program learn about alternative energy sources and how they can create a more sustainable future while cultivating their appreciation and love of nature. The environmental stewards develop their teamwork, problem-solving, and critical thinking skills through hands-on, project-based environmental experiments. The program is delivered through a combination of afterschool/summer project-based instruction, field trips, and wilderness adventures. This can transform this generation of youth to be leaders in the fight against climate change.

Courage Ranch

Courage Ranch

The prevalence of mental illness does not discriminate between rural and urban residents. Courage Ranch is a trauma-focused, equine-assisted psychotherapy facility founded in response to the significant lack of mental health therapy services for children in rural South Texas. Children who come to Courage Ranch face issues of grief, abuse, depression, suicidal ideation, isolation, fear, and anxiety. Courage Ranch is best suited to provide mental health services in rural counties as it provides programing that offers therapy in nature with horses and donkeys—an approach that reduces the stigma surrounding mental issues and allows clients to move, become congruent with nature, and experience the natural rhythms the environment offers.

Courage Ranch opened a second facility in February 2023. The Ranch is currently supported by three therapists, two equine professionals, and seven horses and three donkeys that serve as therapy partners. To meet the demand for its programming, Courage Ranch is hiring an additional therapist. This will reduce the number of children on the wait list and create additional after school appointment opportunities.

Cultivate Collective

Cultivate Collective

Cultivate Collective is a national model for holistic community revitalization that unites education, wellness, sustainability, and economic vitality to create a resilient, equitable, and vibrant future for all. Its six-acre demonstration site on Chicago’s Southwest side is located in a food-insecure community and serves a 96% minority constituency. Cultivate’s site opened to the public in September of 2023. The first phase of construction houses the Academy for Global Citizenship's (AGC) existing K-8 public school, an early childhood Head Start center, community health care center, three-acre urban farm, neighborhood marketplace, six teaching kitchens, and a range of community wellness programs and amenities.

The second phase includes an environmental education learning lab and teacher training institute to host regional children and educators for immersion into and learning from its model. AGC, Cultivate Collective and The Field Museum will use the process and community engagement framework from the highly successful Roots & Routes Initiative to engage community members, children, caregivers, and Chicago artists on the Southwest side of the city to collaboratively design and construct an urban green space for gathering on the Cultivate Collective campus. This space will serve as a resource for community members, students, staff, neighborhood children, and caregivers to host events, spend contemplative time in nature and celebrate cultural heritage.

Dakota Wicohan

Dakota Wicohan’s mission is to preserve Dakota as a living language, and, through it, transmit Dakota lifeways to future generations. Its vision is to prepare and empower individuals, generation by generation, to lead with wo’Dakota (Dakota values). Through numerous programs, including art workshops, after school youth mentoring, language classes, and suicide prevention efforts, Dakota Wicohan has helped more than 1,000 community members heal from generational trauma and connect to the Dakota language and culture. Its program strategies are Remember, Reclaim and Reconnect—Remember its rich heritage, Reclaim its identity and cultural teachings, and Reconnect its families, students, friends, neighbors and community members to its rich heritage and values.

Dakota Wicohan's outdoor youth programming, including its Sunktanka Wicayuhapi (They Care for Horses) Program (a mentor-based program helps youth aged 12-21 build and sustain relationships with horses each year); expand outdoor programming (camping, teepees, archery, foraging, gardening, canoeing, and fishing); and explore new activities (such as a two-day youth culture outdoor day camp with different activity stations, like drum group, pipestone carving, language games, lacrosse, etc). Dakota Wicohan’s programming helps youth gain strength and self-confidence as they understand what it means to be Dakota. Success looks like engaged and active youth participating in programming, and then continuing those activities throughout their lives as Dakota culture bearers.

Denver City LAX

Denver City LAX

Thousands of children live in Denver’s Northeast corridor, many without access and opportunity to participate in meaningful programming. Denver City Lax (DCL) is a sports-based youth development organization working to provide equal access to educational and enrichment opportunities to boys and girls in under-resourced neighborhoods through the sport of lacrosse. It believes sport, and lacrosse specifically, is uniquely suited to be part of the solution because the game combines physical activity, relationships, structure, and competence building. The culture of perseverance, resilience, grit, and teamwork, coupled with educational aims, translates directly into building self-confidence in its student-thletes’ personal lives.

DCL's Little Laxer Program is step one in establishing lacrosse and its numerous ties to education as a legitimate activity to pursue. Its Girls Development Program closes the numerical gap between boys and girls; fewer girls participate in physical activity and sports than boys, and even fewer girls of color. To ensure no boy or girl is excluded, all programming and necessary equipment is provided at no cost. The spring lacrosse season is the centerpiece, but year-round programming has been established in three well-defined areas: Lacrosse, Education and Enrichment. Programming includes: a quality youth sports program, health and nutritional guidance, academic assistance, life skills development, social emotional skills building, mental health workshops, enrichment activities including outdoor adventure, and adult and peer mentoring.

Diving With A Purpose

Diving With a Purpose (DWP) is a volunteer underwater archaeology program started by members of the National Association of Black Scuba Divers (NABS) and the National Park Service (NPS) in Biscayne National Park. The organization is dedicated to the conservation and protection of underwater cultural heritage resources by providing education, training, certification and field experience to adults and youth in the fields of maritime archaeology and ocean conservation. DWP’s special focus is the documentation, interpretation and protection of shipwrecks that were involved in the Transatlantic Era of African Enslavement and the maritime history and culture of African Americans who formed a core of labor and expertise for America’s maritime enterprises. DWP has trained more than 600 adult and youth divers in underwater archaeology documentation and coral reef conservation.

Historically, U.S. drowning rates among African American youth have been disproportionately higher compared to other racial and ethnic groups. DWP's Africatown Swim-To-SCUBA program, in collaboration with swim-based training programs in the local area, help youth become more proficient swimmers and be more confident in the water. The SCUBA training portion of the program provides youth with life skills in critical thinking and problem solving with the added complexity of dynamics in an aquatic environment. The program also exposes youth to the science and physics of SCUBA diving and a higher level of experiential learning.The objective of the Discover SCUBA sessions is to introduce youth to the sport of scuba diving by professional instructors utilizing full SCUBA gear in a controlled environment.

EARTHseed Farm

EARTHseed Farm 

A fiscally sponsored project by Community Movement Builders

EARTHseed Farm is a 14-acre solar-powered organic farm and orchard located on the ancestral lands of the Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo Peoples in Sonoma County, California. The farm is operated and rooted in Afro-Indigenous permaculture principles and built on the long legacy of Earth wisdom traditions of people of African descent. EARTHseed aims to share experiences that support youth to build their connection to nature, which has immense benefits for mental and physical health. Eating healthy and being connected to your food source is important for people of all ages, and EARTHseed is delighted to be able to share that knowledge and experience with young people in formative times of their lives. EARTHseed’s curriculum provides a way to teach youth about bigger ecological principles, and connect the dots with their interests, while sharing with them its approach in which care for people, Earth, and community are connected.

EARTHseed’s Back to Our Roots program serves youth, ages 6-21, through immersive daylong experiences in a natural environment at the farm. This includes U-Pick opportunities (elementary school aged) and daylong field trips (middle or high school aged). EARTHseed’s primarily serves youth of color who usually do not have access to a Black-led farm. Youth participants experience EARTHseed’s farm and educational center, visit animals on site, learn about Afro-Indigenous permaculture and traditional ecological knowledge, and gain awareness of historical and current cultural practices for stewarding the earth. Youth develop life skills through practicing harvesting and food preparation, as well as other hands-on skills, and learn about ecological concepts such as water conservation, soil and compost, biodiversity, and more through observing and discussing elements around the farm.

Excite All Stars

Excite All Stars

Louisiana (“Sportsman’s Paradise”) is a place that is rich in seafood, swamps, wildlife, fishing, and many outdoor activities. Unfortunately, many of the youth in the inner city of New Orleans do not have the opportunity to experience this side of Louisiana. Instead, they often experience the more unpleasant side of environmental issues and injustices which puts themselves and family members at risk for health inequities and exposure to toxic waste. Excite All Stars empowers kids to become leaders that change the world by providing a stable support system; exposure to all-in-one All Star experiences in leadership, academics, the arts, and athletics; and trailblazing thinking that teaches kids to create change in their community.

Excite All Star’s outdoor adventure programming includes a week-long environmentally focused camping experience for youth from the Greater New Orleans area. Excite All Stars also provide year-round opportunities for canoeing, hiking, high ropes course and rowing. These opportunities, in partnership with Louisiana Outdoors Outreach Program and New Orleans Rowing Club, take place on Saturdays during the school year. Providing youth from underrepresented communities access to outdoor adventures, in potentially new and interesting ways, teaches independence and self-awareness, demonstrates partnership and trust, and develops outdoor leaders through innovative programing and trips to public lands.

Get Outdoors Leadville!

Get Outdoors Leadville!

A fiscally sponsored program of Lake County Community Fund. 

Despite living in a region renowned for its outdoor assets, many youth and families in Lake County, Colorado, face significant barriers to accessing the benefits of outdoor experiences. Roughly 70% of Lake County students are Latine and are significantly underrepresented in outdoor recreation. Many families are recent immigrants and often undocumented, resulting in compounded barriers to accessing the outdoors. Get Outdoors Leadville!’s (GOL!) mission is to deepen the community's connection to the natural world by expanding equitable access to culturally informed and enriching outdoor experiences.

GOL!’s out of school time (OOST) program activities (including hiking, biking, canoeing, rock climbing, archery, ice skating, cross-country skiing, and snowshoeing) support youth in building outdoor activity competencies and applying these competencies in a non-competitive environment. All program days provide at least 60 minutes of physical activity, increasing youths’ daily activity levels and fueling lifelong habits of finding joy through movement in nature. The programs also support local youth through day camps during school closures (including summer, spring, and winter breaks); afternoon “5th Day” programming on Fridays throughout the school year; and outdoor facilitation for Lake County School District’s after-school program. GOL! provides program transportation, partners with local schools to provide free meals and snacks, and offers sliding scale tuition, payment plans, and waivers to ensure equitable program access, which helps ensure that all Lake County youth have the opportunity to access the benefits of outdoor recreation.

Heritage Conservancy

Heritage Conservancy

Heritage Conservancy (HC) works in partnership with Pennsylvania communities, landowners, businesses, governments, and other mission-focused organizations to ensure that the natural and cultural landscapes that make its region special endure and flourish, for the benefit of both people and nature. It has worked to protect more than 16,000 acres of open space, farmland, wildlife habitat, and important watershed areas throughout Bucks and surrounding counties. In Lower Bucks County, access to safe outdoor spaces for education and recreation are limited and socio-economic factors further limit opportunities for children to connect with nature beyond the school day. Croydon Woods was once designated as an EPA Superfund site, but it has been remediated and is now an HC nature preserve.

HC engages students at Keystone Elementary School (which is adjacent to Croydon Woods) in hands-on outdoor learning across grade levels. With teacher and district input, HC leads students in environmental education activities including mindfulness walks, guided hikes, and habitat sustainability that support students’ physical, mental, emotional, and educational wellbeing. Additionally, student leaders from 4th grade will be selected to participate in a Tree Protectors program to deepen their connection with the outdoors, help to educate younger students, and engage the community in learning about this natural area.

Indigenous Lacross Alliance

Indigenous Lacross Alliance

A fiscally sponsored project of Homegrown Lacrosse

The Indigenous Lacrosse Alliance (ILA) works to support Indigenous youth in the Upper Midwest through sports-based youth development efforts with a focus on traditional and modern lacrosse. Using sport as the conduit, ILA pulls together geographic and programmatic partners to create enriching and engaging programs with a focus on cultural belonging, resiliency and intergenerational learning. It creates multiple touch points for the youth it serves, and for the senior staff, site partners, and Leadership Development Program participants, to learn and grow together.

LA’s three programs (Lax-4-Life Camp, Turtle Islanders Club, and Community Development Program) provide multiple interventions to help youth grow in both sport and in their educational, social-emotional, and cultural learning. Lax-4-Life Summer Lacrosse Camp is an overnight camp experience for Indigenous youth to develop lacrosse and leadership skills as a part of a health and wellness-focused curriculum on the Fond du Lac Reservation. Turtle Islanders Lacrosse Club offers a team experience for Indigenous groups focused on skill development and healthy connection among Native teens and young adults. The Community Development Program is an interrelated series of direct service and organizational support programs to develop in-school and out-of-school programs for Indigenous youth in tribal communities across the state.

In addition to bringing together community partners, ILA also work with its fiscal sponsor, Homegrown Lacrosse, a recognized leader in sports-based youth development, to create curricula that centers culturally competent and trauma-informed care for the Indigenous youth in its programs.

Ironwood Tree Experience

Ironwood Tree Experience

Desert regions experience more consecutive days of temperatures over 100 degrees, local and statewide wildfires, and megadroughts. While everyone is affected, many of the young people in urban areas are disproportionately impacted by these natural disasters, in addition to other societal and environmental injustices. This causes young people to feel less hopeful about their future, especially if they don’t have positive experiences outdoors that can inspire hope and center their well-being. In order to create healthy and resilient communities, Ironwood Tree Experience (ITE) makes it possible for young people to engage with the natural world and be stewards of the environment.

ITE’s “Nurture Yourself in Nature” program was designed as a train-the-trainer program for staff and youth leaders to gain the knowledge and skills necessary to deliver programs that center the health and well-being of themselves, ITE youth participants, and the natural world. Nurture Yourself in Nature consists of a series of workshops intended for professional development for youth leaders who have completed a previous internship with ITE and staff and board members. The workshops take place in urban green spaces or public lands located in Tucson and Southern Arizona. Program goals are for staff and youth leaders to understand that a connection with nature improves the health and wellness of themselves, their community, and the environment; be skillful in lessons and techniques that strengthen the human-nature connection; and inspire others, especially youth ages 14-18, to connect with nature for improved health and wellness for themselves, their community, and the natural world.

Kids in Focus

Kids in Focus

Pressure from parents, social media, friends, and the complexities of daily life have made being a kid harder than it was a generation ago. Despite this, research shows that a creative outlet, coupled with the support of a caring adult, can have a profound impact on a young person's resilience, self-confidence, and opportunity. Kids in Focus’ (KIF) believes that photography is a unique and powerful tool for self-expression and personal growth, and that every child deserves the opportunity to explore their unique perspective and voice. KIF strives to provide a safe and supportive environment where children can learn, connect with their communities, and discover their own potential, with an ultimate goal to inspire the next generation of creative thinkers and leaders while inspiring them to make a positive impact in the world.

KIF’s True North Photography Day Camp's three day-long sessions are held for Maricopa County youth, ages 11-15, from adverse circumstances that include poverty, foster care, abuse, and neglect. During each True North excursion, the youth receive a camera to use for the day and a backpack to keep. Adult mentors (who are also experienced photographers) are paired with the youth; and together they will travel to rural Arizona and explore nature through the lens of a camera while taking part in physical activities such as hiking, walking, and climbing. The trip home includes a celebratory slideshow with photos selected by participants. True North is offered free of charge to youth and includes transportation, lunch, dinner, and snacks.

Miles4Mentors

Miles4Mentors

Miles4Mentors (M4M) is dedicated to ensuring sports and physical activities become more accessible for all children in Willmar and West Central Minnesota communities. It provides opportunities for children to be physically active through running and other activities. These activities foster the learning of valuable life lessons, character building, relationships, and an appreciation of being active for all levels of ability. They also help improve physical, mental, and emotional well-being.

M4M’s free Fun Run Series is held each summer and encourages kids to try a fun physical outdoor activity. The running series has been a powerful way to introduce local children to physical activity and to encourage those already active to increase their overall health and wellness. The runs bring children and their families together from a variety of cultures and social-economic backgrounds. M4M also provides scholarships through its Pay to Play Initiative, which has allowed more children a year to participate in youth sports and activities.

Momentum Bike Clubs

Momentum Bike Clubs

Adolescence is a time when youth build attitudes, competencies, values, and social skills that will carry them forward to a successful adulthood. For youth from marginalized and under resources communities, these skills often seemingly unattainable without intervention. Momentum Bike Clubs (MBC) serves youth, ages 11-18, who face multiple risk factors and an accumulation of childhood trauma. It transforms the lives of its students through a comprehensive youth development program using cycling as a platform to foster and sustain mentoring relationships. 

Through middle school bike clubs, high school bike clubs, and Challenge Team, MBC’s mentors connect with youth on weekly rides. To further develop and deepen relationships between students and mentors, MBC also engages students and mentors in unique outdoor adventure experiences, including white water rafting, adventure cycling, hiking, and camping. MBC’s outdoor adventure experiences are offered to Challenge Team students. Trips include cycling adventures on the Greenbrier River Trail in West Virginia, Silver Comet Trail in Atlanta, DuPont State Forest Mountain/Gravel Ride and Paris Mountain Adventures. In August, Challenge Team students will have the opportunity to go white water rafting, which is an incredible opportunity for students to experience the outdoors in a way that most have not before.

OKC Latina

OKC Latina

A fiscally sponsored project of The Third Space Foundation

  • Grant amount: $10,000

Latinx in Oklahoma are severely underserved when it comes to outdoor recreation program access. OKC Latina works to create safe and inclusive spaces for people to explore new skills and spend time together outdoors. Its free fishing clinics provide access to experts in the field and allow participants to spend time honing their skills surrounded by community members.

OKC Latina is also working to support a younger generation of Latinx in Oklahoma City by serving youth and young adults through fishing clinics. Participants are provided all the equipment necessary to participate in the day's activities. Some of the events also include outdoor wellness fairs with community partners providing programs and resources for overall wellness. OKC Latina has found that connecting its community with resources is the best way to help make a difference in their lives. Spanish-speaking volunteers are present at all of OKC Latina events so no one is denied access due to a language barrier.

Red Tail Scholarship Foundation

Red Tail Scholarship Foundation

  • Website: rtfa.org
  • Grant amount: $30,000

There is a severe shortage of pilots and maintenance professionals in the workforce, and it is projected to last 20 years or more. Only 2-3% of pilots are African American in spite of the accomplishments by the Tuskegee Airmen. The mission of the Red Tail Scholarship Foundation (RTSF) is to seek, identify, and develop qualified, motivated students who demonstrate the values the original Tuskegee Airmen embodied, and provide them the tools necessary to succeed in the aviation career field. RTSF’s vision is to develop a top-notch Flight and Aviation Maintenance School that addresses the gaps in diversity as well as the shortage of pilots and maintenance technicians in the airline industry to create opportunities in under-resourced communities and effect positive change that will impact generations to come.

RTSF’s Education in Pilot Training program is a blend of physical and mental activity. RTSF offers the support and mentoring these youth need to overcome barriers keeping them from attaining a career in the aviation industry. Students also have the opportunity to receive fight training that allows them to earn a Private Pilot Certificate. The students can continue their training to obtain the Instrument Rating and advance to a Commercial Pilot Certificate and the Certified Flight Instructor (CFI) Certificate. All RTSF’s students who become CFIs continue to teach inside the program, building flight time while mentoring newer students.

The Semilla Project

The Semilla Project

New Mexico is known for its rich biodiversity and picturesque landscapes. Yet for communities of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), intersectional racial and economic inequities have foreclosed access to and enjoyment of the outdoors. The Semilla Project is working to change this through a unique, land-based learning and organizing model that intervenes in this trend by helping BIPOC youth access the outdoors and empowering their activation as positive agents of change for their communities, lands, and water.

The Semilla Project’s Land Based Learning & SemiYA! programming engages youth in outdoor experiences, such as backpacking, rock climbing, mountaineering, and snow travel, while providing the equipment, training, transportation, and experienced guides to facilitate participation at any income or experience level. These trips feature a curriculum that decolonizes outdoor recreation, wellness, and leadership; shares Indigenous knowledge; and empowers youth of color to know they too belong in outdoor spaces. By reconnecting these youth with nature, The Semilla Project not only facilitates life-changing outdoor experiences, but it also galvanizes youth to advocate for the environmental, economic, and racial justice that will create equitable change for future generations. To make possible the advancement of wellbeing for all communities, The Semilla Project centers BIPOC/BIWOC leaders and teach upcoming generations that systematic change starts by reconnecting, understanding, and reclaiming culture, identity, wellness, and their relationship with land.

SHAPE Community Center

SHAPE Community Center

SHAPE Community Center works to improve the quality of life for people of African descent (all people) through programs and activities, with an emphasis on unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith. SHAPE offer a variety of daily classes and activities after school, during school breaks, and all day throughout the summer. While social change has become a prominent topic of conversation over the last few years, local schools have suffered major setbacks in cultural education. SHAPE’s programs specifically help children to develop a positive cultural identity.

SHAPE’s programming gives children a chance to experience and understand culturally significant events that helped form the group identity of Black people in America so they can determine how it will shape them as individuals. After school and during school breaks, SHAPE provides children with enrichment programs and activities that allow them to explore local cultural landmarks. At the end of the summer, the children and chaperones will take a seven-day bus tour—called the Freedom Tour, in the spirit of the great Freedom Riders of the 1960s—across the South to retrace the Civil Rights Movement. The tour will bring to life the lands, parks, and trails that intersected with cultural movements and provide students with opportunity to connect with the challenges and triumphs of the past in order to serve as a catalyst to engage the children in social change.

Solar Youth

Solar Youth

Urban youth face enormous daily challenges, such as high family unemployment, substance abuse, crime, and violence. Parents/guardians, while loving, may lack the skills and/or time and energy to provide the support and attention their children need. Too often, youth have an abundance of unsupervised time, which may result in finding a sense of value and identity through negative behaviors, beginning at an early age. Solar Youth targets two of New Haven's neighborhoods where few resources promoting positive youth development exist despite the tremendous need. Solar Youth addresses these issues by being a consistent presence in these neighborhoods. Families rely on Solar Youth to help build community, connect youth to the environment, and foster social cohesion.

Solar Youth’s Steward Program is a core youth program that serves youth, ages 5 to 12, as well as teenage interns, ages 13-18. The program connects youth to the environment, their communities and each other, while helping them build the skills and motivations necessary to be positive contributors to their community, have healthy relationships, be physically and mentally healthy, and become economically self-sufficient. Solar Youth’s five core program elements are environmental exploration, youth-led problem solving, nonviolent communication, mindfulness, and youth leadership. Through unique programs, youth explore their environment, learn the skills and joys of being agents of positive change, and teach what they have learned to others (Kids Explore! Kids Do! Kids Teach!).

Urban Word

Urban Word

Urban Word champions, centers, and elevates young, marginalized voices as leaders at the intersection of the arts and civic engagement. Through the  transformative power of the written and spoken word, Urban Word provides young, creative voices the tools, training, and platforms to rewrite the narratives that shape their lives and communities. Urban Word provides platforms for critical literacy, youth development and leadership through free and uncensored writing, social impact, performance, and healing arts-centered workshops and opportunities.

Urban Word’s Movement of Body and Pen workshop series supports young people with finding healthy ways to heal and explore their mind, body, and soul through creative writing expression, yoga, movement, meditative practices, and nature walks to provide them tools to support their mental wellness. Each workshop addresses a different theme and opens with a wellness activity. Urban Word's youth continue to express interest in providing them with emotional support around their creativity, so Urban Word trains its creative writing teaching artists to integrate mindfulness practices into their workshops. By the end of the program, participants will have a basic understanding of how to continue wellness practices using what they learned as tools for self-awareness, healing and stress-management and will grow as writers in their community. 

Walter Anderson Museum of Art

Walter Anderson Museum of Art

The Walter Anderson Museum of Art (WAMA) in Ocean Springs, MS, is just blocks away from the Mississippi Sound. It is dedicated to the preservation and celebration of artist-philosopher Walter Inglis Anderson (1903-1965), whose paintings, drawings, murals, block prints, sculptures, and writings of coastal plants, animals, landscapes, and people have placed him among the most compelling and singular artists of the 20th century. The Museum is guided by Anderson's belief that "in order to realize the beauty of humanity, we must realize our relation to nature."

WAMA’s Public Art Enterprise leverages art making and the environment to meet the need for increased outdoor education and recreation in public schools, as well as to address the challenges of brain drain and STEM workforce development. Over the course of the 12-month program, students from nearby Hancock County work with professional artists to design, fabricate, and install a large-scale steel sculpture in their community that speaks to socio-environmental resilience and connection to the natural world. Students find inspiration through excursions to coastal environments, conduct community-engaged design work to solicit public input, collaborate with professional artists to engineer the steel structure, and hone skills of welding and fabrication to bring the artwork to life. The sculpture’s location, selected in partnership with the municipal leaders, serves as an anchor for community placemaking and recreation, as well as a vehicle for STEM skill acquisition and student discovery that supports homegrown workforce development and overall student health in Coastal Mississippi.

We've Got Friends

Teens with special needs spend many hours in structured, therapeutic settings. Having organic, unstructured opportunities to develop friendship and connection via outdoor and indoor recreational activities is beneficial to the teens’ physical and emotional health. We’ve Got Friends (WGF) Social Network for Teens with Special Needs provides opportunities for teens to develop friendships and connections through mutual interests in a natural environment.

WGF’s Social Network's weekly groups are teen-led and the activity centers the teens can choose from are guided by their interests and input. Activity centers include personal care activities (e.g., painting fingernails, making lip balms), Lego brick stations, listening to music, making crafts, playing sports, performing music, watching movies, and interactive games. When able, these group activities are offered outside. Being engaged in outdoor recreational activities allows the teens to find the type of recreation that stimulates or relaxes them, based on what their sensory and neurological systems need. Knowing how to modulate their emotional state helps teens with special needs use their social and communication skills more effectively.

West Point Association of Graduates

West Point Association of Graduates

After school programming for 3-8 grade students in the Highland Falls Intermediate School was identified as a need from within the community. Out-of-school learning opportunities are widely acknowledged for positively impacting students’ academic, mental, social, and emotional development. While the benefits of out-of-school learning are clear, access to such programming is a challenge. Led by the West Point Association of Graduates (WPAOG), CONNECT After School Program addresses this community need by offering free after school programming to more than half the student population, where 56% of students are economically disadvantaged and 5% are homeless. 

CONNECT’s Nature Program significantly enhances CONNECT’s curriculum by providing students with new and engaging outdoor educational experiences that increase students’ physical activity and outdoor time. CONNECT provides students with daily recreational and outdoor activities which often incorporate West Point’s Division I athletic teams and cadet clubs as well as other West Point resources. WPAOG is working to increase the number of outdoor educational offerings, because it recognizes the value and impact of such experiences on students’ social, mental, and emotional development. The Nature Program offers students a series of new, outdoor field trips that connect them to their local environment and increase opportunities for physical activity in partnership with the Hudson Highlands Nature Museum. Field trip topics include Maple Sugar Tours, Incredible Insects, World of Frogs, Forest Ecology Ramble, Hudson River Study, Paleontology, Habitats on the Hudson, Symbols of New York, Pond Ecology, and Hudson River Ecology. These field trips promote student learning through discovery and experimentation while contributing to students’ personal growth and development.

Wilderness Inquiry

Wilderness Inquiry

Outdoor education and recreation are more important than ever in supporting academic, physical, mental, and social-emotional learning outcomes. However, access to outdoor spaces and activities is not equitably available. Many individuals, including those who identify as BIPOC, LGBTQ+, having a disability, or experiencing financial inequity face barriers to equitably participating in the outdoors. Wilderness Inquiry’s mission is to connect people of all ages, backgrounds, identities, and abilities through shared outdoor adventures so that all people can equitably experience the benefits of time spent in nature. Through its core values of paddling together, finding a way, seeking the exceptional, and nurturing inclusion, Wilderness Inquiry promotes the outdoors as a place where everyone belongs.

Wilderness Inquiry’s Canoemobile program breaks down barriers to the outdoors by introducing youth and families from underserved and underrepresented communities across the United States to education and recreation on their local waterways and public lands. Canoemobile offers opportunities to canoe and participate in experiential land-based activities that build outdoor skills, increase confidence, and promote connections to community and nature. Wilderness Inquiry supplies gear and equipment, adaptive supports, and highly trained outdoor leaders. 

Wilderness Youth Project

Wilderness Youth Project

  • Website: wyp.org
  • Grant amount: $30,000

Despite the perception that Santa Barbara is an enclave for the wealthy, it currently ranks third among California's 58 counties in its poverty rate, with 23 percent of residents falling below the poverty threshold, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. That’s why Wilderness Youth Project is offering its Bridge to Nature programs at no cost in partnership with the Santa Barbara Unified School District.

Wilderness Youth Project's school-day programs at Adams Elementary School connects students with access to nature and mentorship. It guides youth through self-directed exploration, games, awareness practices, naturalist skills, inquiry-based learning, and storytelling to ensure that participating students–many of whom have never even visited the beach before–have a positive and meaningful experience.