Youth Environmental Education – Real Life Outdoor Vibes
Epic rafting trips, relaxing hikes, and creative on-site programming inspired and provided joyful experiences for more than 700 youth this summer.
“Thanks to our generous supporters, partners, and grant funders, we were able to provide free outings and educational programs to over 700 participants from June to August this year,” says Equity and Education Manager LaKyla Hodges.
Participants came from our partners in Youth Transformed for Life (YTL) and the Asheville Parks & Recreation summer camps (the Burton Street, Stephens-Lee, Linwood Crump Shiloh, Grant Southside, and Tempie Avery Montford, and Murphy-Oakley community centers). Programs and outings included hiking, rafting, and a tour of the SAHC Community Farm.
“We prioritize doing place-based activities in our educational programming,” explains LaKyla. “This means we do programming that directly connects to the area around the participants. An example of this is a lesson where youth pretend to be bears in Asheville and have to overcome human-made obstacles to find food and shelter. By the end of the activity, the participants know more about the changing landscape around us and bear safety, and they have dispelled myths about bears.”
“Although some of our partner groups only had two programming sessions, I could still see positive impressions left on the youth,” continues LaKyla. “Participants were engaged and inquisitive during lessons. Some of my favorite questions were: ‘Why does the river move so slow when the water is low?’ and ‘Why can’t we put out fake trash so the bears don’t eat the real trash?’ Questions like these show that the kids digest the information we present and form their own opinions on it. Real life application of the lesson topics is one of the most crucial steps in the learning process.”
Engaging outings included rafting trips and a hiking trip at Montreat Conference Center, during which a group of teens from the Stephens-Lee Community Center were able to see their first waterfall.
“Many of them had never been hiking,” says LaKyla. “By the end of the trip, they were excited to have learned about safety in the outdoors and tried something new. When rafting, we took groups from the Shiloh Community Center summer camp and YTL to USA Raft Adventure Resort in Erwin, TN. Rafting was something that many of the participants had never experienced, including the adult chaperones. We are better able to see and understand the deficit in connection to the outdoors when we accompany these groups on outings. For example, I heard participants ask if there were fish in the river, why there were so many dragonflies, why people would willingly camp on the greenway bordering the river, and why the water was safe to swim in but not drink. It is easy to see why a person would be so apprehensive about trying things outdoors, when it feels like an entirely different world.”
“One of the most important things we did during summer programming was inform the participants that the things they learned about and experienced were all things they could share with their communities,” adds LaKyla. “It is important that after we leave these sites, we do not take the access with us. We are extremely grateful to the REI Cooperative Action Fund for choosing us as grant recipients. Such grants enable us to provide programming cost-free to participants. We are also grateful to USA Raft Adventure Resort for donating rafting sessions. With the recent challenges in our region following hurricane Helene, we feel a lot of uncertainty from community partners. However, we are excited to continue moving forward with educational programming, and to continue establishing SAHC as a resource for those seeking a connection to the outdoors.”
REI Cooperative Action Fund Grant
SAHC’s educational outdoor programs are made possible in part by a second consecutive $10,000 grant awarded by the REI Cooperative Action Fund. The REI Cooperative Action Fund is a community-supported public charity bringing together the collective strength of the community to support organizations that are improving the well-being of all people through time outside. The REI Fund announces new investments each year in the spring and the fall to provide unrestricted funding to nonprofit partners across three specific areas: connecting people outside, creating space outside, and centering health outside.
