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Monday, September 01, 2008
A Night to Remember
Denver, Colorado
There are few moments in life where you feel the goosebumps that come from hearing someone speak. But listening from the top row of Mile High Stadium to Senator Barak Obama's nomination speech last week sent shivers down my spine. The United States is in a difficult position as we have become a country that feels more negative about itself then positive. We are a country that for centuries has provided the world with a sense of hope and a place where flocks of people from all over the world have come to find opportunity and to make their life better for the future of their children. As John Winger a character in the early 80's b-movie Stripes says so well "we are a country of mutts. And their is no more loyal or lovable creature then a mutt". What I saw from Seantor Obama in his speech was leadership. A man determined not to play into the recycled politics of old but to challenge the basic assumptions of our increasingsly cyncical and negative political discourse. He is challnging us as Americans to stand up and be more involved in our communities and to demand equity for all . As I was walking back to downtown after the speech I realized that what I had just witnessed was way beyond a stagetcrafted speech in front of 80,000 people but a man who had a passion that was molded throughout his life in fighting for justice for all communities. To me to hear this speech on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I have a Dream" speech made me have hope that we can come together as a country and work together to give everyone a chance to realize the American dream. It is going to be a tough race but I hope that folks understand the importance of this election and a new generation of diverse, young votres stand up and say "YES WE CAN"
The summer is coming to and end but BBTO is moving forward with some great work going on. On September 12th we will be partnering with one of our New Mexico partners the Santa Fe Mountain Center www.sf-mc.com to host The Leave No Child Inside Forum in Santa Fe. More information can be found on the Forum at www.sierraclub.org/youth/newmexico Richard Louv will be a keynote speaker along with a panel of diverse professionals appearing. New Mexico with its rich history and cultutal traditions related to nature has the ability to be a real leader in the children and nature movement.
The Sierra Club partnered with the National Military Family Association to host an event with United States Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) showcasing the power of nature and how it can help some of our youngest heroes who attend Operation Purple Camps www.nmfa.org . It was a fun day for all and the Sierra Club is proud to be a sponsor of some wonderful military programs which get children outside www.sierraclub.org.military . Hre is a link to a story that ran in the Kitsap Sun. http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2008/aug/21/at-camp-coping-skills-taught-between-the-fun-and/ about the day.
On a sad note BBTO Grants Administrator Britt Glass has moved to Vancouver, B.C with her new husband. Britt has been instrumental in the success of the BBTO program, she will be sorely missed. At the same time we are excited to announce that Tiffany Saleh has been hired as our new California BBTO Rep. Tiffany has a BS from Cal-Davis and an MS from University of Montana in Enviornrmntal Studies. Tiffany has incredible energy and vision and will be working closely with Sierra Club California on our efforts in the Golden State.http://sierraclubca.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2008-08-11T16%3A31%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=7
Lots of positive things going on and BBTO is working hard to leave no child inside!
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Natural Leaders
Seattle, WA
The summer is moving along and there has been so much movement in connecting children with the outdoors. One of the examples that has excited me is the fact that the movement seems to be growing in a very holistic way. The Today Show the most watched morning show recently interviewed Rich Louv and focused on Nature Clubs for Families
http://www.childrenandnature.org/natureclubs
I find it quite inspiring that so many families would take it upon themselves to connect to nature and establish it as a vital part of their community. It seems that as this movement grows we are finding out that connecting our children to nature not only helps kids but hels build stronger families and closer communities. Enjoy the Today Show piece
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
BBTO sends young New Yorkers to Puerto Rico to connect with their heritage, explore the environment, and protect the planet!
By Jackie Ostfeld, National Youth Representative, BBTO
Penuelas, Puerto Rico
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of meeting four students from New York City – three of them BBTO-ers from the Bronx Lab High School – in a small Puerto Rican mountain town called Peñuelas. The young Latinas were on the island to connect with their heritage, explore the outdoors and participate in a summer training co-hosted by the Sierra Student Coalition and the Building Bridges to the Outdoors project.
Just in time for summer, the New Yorkers sojourned to Puerto Rico to join about thirty Puerto Rican high school and college students for a training led by their peers. Throughout the week students learned valuable campaign skills, including how to organize, work with the media and educate legislators about environmentally responsible policies. They were visited by guests speakers, like Sierra Club’s own National Political and Public Advocacy Director, Cathy Duvall, and a PhD student from Rutgers who was born and raised in Puerto Rico and now specializes in Environmental Anthropology.
Throughout the week, the students got to explore some of Puerto Rico’s most unique community projects and natural areas, like the People’s Forest and Guanica Dry Forest. In Guanica, we saw the world’s tallest flower and a few of Puerto Rico’s endemic birds. Back on site, the BBTO-ers enjoyed some unstructured free time splashing around in the nearby creek. The Latinas from NYC were the first to brave the fresh and COLD water. Others soon followed, and before it was time to go, the students had self-organized into a clean, green, trash-collecting team.
It is so rewarding to watching a group of inner city-New Yorkers connect with Puerto Ricans from the island to enjoy and protect the environment. By the time they were ready to head back to New York City, the BBTO-ers were fired up to lead their own schools in the fight to protect the environment!
Sunday, June 01, 2008
Pathway to the Outdoors
Chicago, Ill
There are moments that you make you truly humbled and Tuesday night I experiences one of those. The Sierra Club's Building Bridges to the Outdoors Project has been working with the Chicago Boys and Girls Clubs http://www.bgcc.org/ and the Illinois Chapter of the Sierra Club http://illinois.sierraclub.org/ to engage keystone members of the Chicago Boys and Girls Clubs with a variety of outdoor activities. We have head a three day annual event at Indiana Dunes Park Preserve where participants take part in activities ranging from water-quality testing to hiking the Dunes and experiencing starts while munching on smores for the first time.
One of the participants the first year of this program was Jerone Thadison a young man who had grown up on the westside of Chicago and never been exposed to the wonders of nature. Jerone was the keynote speaker at a celebration dinner Pathway to the Outdoors we held this week in Chicago. What was so humbling about listening to Jerone was how this one-time experience had affected his life. From the hikes along the Dunes he had been inspired to start an environmental club at his local Boys and Girls Club Chapter, the McCormick Club. Partnering with the Illinois Chapter of the Sierra Club, the McCormick Club has adopted Forest Preserves around the Chicago area and helped maintain their ecological intergrity. But Jerone took it a step farther, he used these experiences to become interested in plant biology and now three years later after being a young man who had never been on a hike he is a sophmore at Chicago State University majoring in Biology with a 3.3 GPA. There is nothing that gives me greater satisfaction then to see a young man like Jerone and the success that have been an outgrowth of his outdoor experiences. This is an example that the enviornrmntal movement is beginning to look and feel more like America.
Here is a link to story I am quoted on about virtual classrooms http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/969989.html in California. I have concerns that virtual reality will take away the special places all of our young people deserve to experience. There is no substitute in my opinion that replaces touching, smelling and hearing nature in person. A great story in USA Today weekend about the wonderful efforts of the Crenshaw Eco Club
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
A New Generation of Heroes to Experience the Outdoors
San Francisco, CA
I am so excited to announce a new program that the Sierra Club is going to be engaged in. The Military Family Outdoor (MFO) Initiative, a joint project of the Sierra Club and The Sierra Club Foundation, has announced a three-year grant of up to $23,324,000 provided by generous donors to support three organizations that provide returning veterans and their families with healing, life-affirming outdoor experiences in the natural world.
“We are proud to serve military families thanks to the support of donors to The Sierra Club Foundation who are profoundly motivated to ensure that those protecting our country get to enjoy its natural wonders,” stated Carl Pope, Executive Director of the Sierra Club. “This project will connect a new generation of American servicemen and women and their children to the mental and physical benefits of our natural heritage.” The Military Family Outdoor Initiative is building on the success of a partnership the Sierra Club began last year with support to the National Military Family Association to provide week-long summer camp experiences to military children. “Together with the Sierra Club we can make a difference in the lives of our Nation’s youngest heroes,” said Nancy Alsheimer, Chairman of the NMFA Board of Governors. “Drawing on the healing and connecting experiences of the outdoors, Operation Purple Camps empower military children and provide a much needed respite from worries about their deployed parent.”
The Sierra Club believes that every child has a right to have a special place in nature. In a 2005 study mandated by the California Legislature, the American Institute of Research found that children gain self-esteem and personal responsibility from outdoor experiences. In fact, students demonstrated a 27 percent increase in science test scores after a week-long outdoor experience. The Sierra Club’s Military Family Outdoor program will provide these experiences for military children during a crucial time in their lives. This year, the Sierra Club has greatly expanded its work with NMFA and has added outdoor programs for returning veterans, as well as camping programs for the entire military family to experience together. Sierra Club’s Military Family Outdoor Initiative has partnered with the Armed Services YMCA to provide additional family camps near military installations across the country and joined with Outward Bound to sponsor returning veterans in outdoor wilderness adventure courses. “Outward Bound is grateful to the Military Family Outdoor Initiative Project for its support serving America’s veterans through our proven outdoor wilderness adventure courses,” said John Read, Outward Bound’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “The Sierra Club Foundation grant provides a rewarding outdoor camping experience for hundreds of military kids as well as military families. They’ll have an opportunity to learn more about nature and most importantly, take time away from the stress of deployment,” said Armed Services YMCA National Executive Director Frank Gallo, Rear Admiral, U.S. Navy (Ret). “The ASYMCA is proud to have the Sierra Club as a partner in our mission to support America’s military families.” The MFO program is going to help veterans returning from time spent protecting our country to enjoy the natural wonders and the therapeutic benefits of nature. I am excited to help lead this program. www.nmfa.org www.asymca.org www.outwardbound.org/
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
A New Generation
Los Angeles, CA
Crenshaw High School here in Los Angeles is in many ways the definition of what is wrong with public education in America. With over a 40% drop out rate and gang violence a constant the school has become in many ways a daycare center for troubled adolescents. While the statistics back up this claim there is so much more to Crenshaw if you look a little deeper. Since 2002 through the efforts of Bill Vanderberg, the Dean of Students and my lead volunteer, the Crenshaw High School Eco Club has grown from a small after-school club into the largest after-school program at Crenshaw with over a hundred members. The Eco Club has helped so many children move their life in a positive direction. The Club takes kids to local parks such as Ken Hahn State Recreation Area http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=612 for weekly hikes and trail clean up but also holds an annual Survivor Challenge where young people who have never experienced the outdoors get an opportunity to see the stars and enjoy smores for the first time and see that there is nature in their community! The Eco Club has helped some of its members go on to schools such as Tuskegee and Cal Berkeley to major in environmental studies. The Eco Club is helping shape a new generation of environmental leaders who represent the best and brightest of their community.
I am mentioning Crenshaw because last week Bill Vanderberg organized a week long outing with students from Crenshaw and students from Albany, New York led by Children and Nature Network Board Member Yusef Burgess to go to Yosemite National Park and participate in a Wildlink Program through the Yosemite Institute http://wildlink.wilderness.net/wildlinkofficialprogramsummary.htm The experience these young people had was tremendous as they saw Half Dome for the first time and got a chance to meet new friends from the other side of the country. They also got to listen to Yosemite National Park Ranger Shelton Johnson, a Buffalo Soldier Living Historian http://www.nps.gov/history/history/hisnps/NPShistorians/invisiblemen2.pdf
who helped many of these young people see that their forefathers played an integral role in the settling in the West.
I wanted to focus on Crenshaw because so many times on this blog I talk about big picture things in the Leave No Child Inside Movement but what gets me up every day is the inspiring students at Crenshaw and leaders like Bill Vanderberg who are helping create a new generation of environmental leaders whose diversity and passion represents the best America has to offer.
I have a feeling John Muir was looking down with a smile as he saw the Crenshaw Eco Club members hiking around his scared ground.
Monday, March 10, 2008
A Night of Celebration
Olympia, WA
Many times on this blog I have commented on all of the steps we need to make to ensure that we get more children connected to nature. Last week in Olympia, Washington over sixty people who were critical in passing the No Child Left Inside Act came together to celebrate the first round of grants which are to be awarded on April 1st. The bill initiated a program through Washington State Parks which will give out $1.5 million to outdoor education programs serving at-risk youth. The application deadline closed on February 27th and amazingly over 235 programs applied with funding requests of 8.9 million! If this does not show the demonstrated need that communities have in connecting children with the outdoors I don't know what will. Richard Louv spoke passionately at the event about the leadership the Sierra Club and others are showing in creating real change in our communities in getting funding to help established and new outdoor education programs which are trying to build sustainability into their programs. Sally Jewell the CEO of REI www.rei.com spoke as well and talked about all of the great work that REI is doing on working with diverse audiences around the country and trying to engage a new generation of underserved communities with outdoor recreation. The true stars of the night though were students from John Muir Elementary School in Seattle who spoke about all of the great experiences they have had through their Building Bridges to the Outdoors Grant. Michelle Garcia a 4th grader summed it up best when she said "I love the outdoors because it is the best playground ever!"
Here is the website for the Washington No Child Left Inside Program
http://www.parks.wa.gov/NoChildLeftInside/
There was a good article last week examining how outdoor education can help academic achievement in the journal Scholastic America
I end on a bit of a sad note as Amit Rana our California Representative is moving on to travel the world for the next six months. Amit was an invaluable member of Team BBTO and his help with our events in California and New Hampshire last year made them a success. Amit was a great person who always stepped up. Along with Amit leaving, our New Mexico Representative Michael Casaus has been promoted to New Mexico State Director, Michael will still be engaged with BBTO and we will be hiring people in both California and New Mexico. Congratulations to Michael on his great promotion, well deserved.
It felt really good last week to know that funding is finally going out the door to connect children with a special place in nature!
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