REPOST: Outdoors: Program helps urban youth through outdoor education

Seeking to direct the youth to a successful path, Bryce Allison and Tony Van Vugt of HikingUpward.com partnered to manage a program promoting “transformational experiences for urban youth through outdoor education.” TimesDispatch.com relates how they started their campaign.  

Bryce Allison is a project manager for a telecommunications company in Richmond, but if his vocation doesn’t distinguish him, his avocation does. Allison is one of two partners — Tony Van Vugt is the other — responsible for HikingUpward.com, the go-to resource for hikers in the Mid-Atlantic.

Allison and Van Vugt run the site for free, but, Allison said, it’s become so popular that “we get a lot of offers from people wanting to donate money to help us.” For years, he wanted to channel that money and the passion of fellow hikers toward a good cause. Then, three years ago, it occurred to Allison: Why not create that channel myself?

His inspiration was a local nonprofit called Blue Sky Fund. Its mission is “to provide transformational experiences for urban youth through outdoor education.”

Five or six years ago, Allison saw Blue Sky Fund executive director Lawson Wijesooriya on a local news broadcast. Something about her Church Hill-based organization struck a chord.

Image Source: www.blueskyfund.com

“I was just kind of drawn to them getting kids out there that wouldn’t normally get the chance,” he said. “(With) my kids, because of my love for the outdoors, it’s been easy for them to tag along with me. A lot of inner city kids don’t have that opportunity.”

Those are the opportunities Blue Sky attempts to provide in many forms, Wijesooriya said. What started as a way to offer scholarships to urban kids to go to summer camps has blossomed into a variety of after-school programs, class field trips, leadership programs, summer recreation activities and more.

Image Source: www.naturediscoverycenter.org

This year, Blue Sky Fund will reach more than 1,200 kids, primarily in Richmond’s East End, where they see need as being the greatest. But to do so, like any nonprofit, they need to raise money. That’s where Allison came in.

Three years ago, he contacted Wijesooriya about doing a hike to raise money for her group. He proposed a 40-mile, three-state hike along the Appalachian Trail — from Pennsylvania through Maryland and then West Virginia.

“We loved the idea,” Wijesooriya said. “It really fit the core of who are and how we could get our kids involved in a fund-raising event.”

The timing wasn’t great for that hike, but Allison stuck with it, and he and Wijesooriya worked out the details on what has become the Blue Sky Fund’s Hike for Kids.

On Oct. 19, anyone who wants to participate will have the option of doing a 28-mile, 18-mile or 7-mile hike on the AT between the Tye River Gap and the Rockfish Gap. The 28-milers will start at 5 in the morning and join the 18-milers at Reed’s Gap. The 7-milers, including a number of Richmond kids who have participated in Blue Sky Programs, will meet the first two groups at Humpback Rocks, and everyone will finish the hike together. Devil’s Backbone Brewpub in Roseland, at the base of Wintergreen, will play host to an after-party for everyone involved.

Image Source: www.theedgesusu.co.uk

Hikers are asked to donate a minimum of $100 to register and then, the Blue Sky Fund website says, “we request that you aim to raise more money through attracting sponsors and supporters to cheer you on toward your personal goal.”

This is no easy section of the AT, but that’s the point, Wijesooriya said, when it comes to the kids her organization mentors.

“What we’ve seen in some of our kids, not all, but some, is that when you give them kind of a safe playground to have these manufactured challenges in the outdoors, they can apply those successes (to their lives). They think ‘Well, I didn’t think I could do that, but if I can, maybe I can survive a night when the lights go out or there’s no food on the table or I have to babysit my younger sibling,’ whatever their real-life challenges are. We give them not only a break from (real life), but they’re then also able to apply themselves to something that’s challenging in a different way.”

Aspen Education Group, member of the CRC Health Group, develops and provides struggling youth with educational programs to help them cope with their situation and achieve educational success. Visit this website to know more about its programs.

REPOST: Local teen attends space camp

In order to promote science, technology, engineering, and math, the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville gave teens a shot at hands-on aerospace experience.  The Salisbury Post gives us the point of view of Stephan Mosher, one of the program participants.

A local student got to attend Space Camp this summer at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala., home of NASA’s official Visitor Information Center for Marshall Space Flight Center.

Stephan Mosher, 14, the son of Jimm and Patrice Mosher, is a freshman at Jesse C. Carson High School in China Grove. He attended Southeast Middle School last year.

The week-long educational program promotes science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), while training students and adults with hands-on activities and missions based on team work, leadership and decision-making.

Stephan was part of the Space Academy Program, which is specifically designed for trainees who have a particular interest in science and aerospace. He spent the week training with a team that flew a simulated Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS).

Image Source: www.spweb.sx2.atl.publicus.com

Once aboard the ISS, the crew participated in experiments and successfully completed an extra-vehicular activity (EVA), or space walk. Stephan and crew returned to earth in time to hear retired Space Shuttle astronaut Col. Bob Springer speak at their graduation.

Space Camp crew trainers who lead each 16-member team must have at least a year of college, and 67 percent of the 2011 staff are college graduates.

Space Camp operates year-round in Huntsville, Alabama, and uses astronaut training techniques to engage trainees in real-world applications of STEM subjects. Students sleep in quarters designed to resemble the ISS and train in simulators like those used by NASA.

More than 600,000 trainees have graduated from Space Camp since its opening in Huntsville in 1982, including STS-131 astronaut Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger. Last year, children and teachers from all 50 states and 58 international locations attended Space Camp.

Founded on quality, integrity and dependability combined with the desire to help behaviorally challenged youth achieve personal and educational growth, Aspen Education Group has been providing programs that aid teens in combating behavioral issues.  Visit the group's official website for more details on its therapeutic programs.