Featured Outdoor Diversity Organization: Greening Youth Foundation For the month of October, we here at The National Parks Experience, along with several other national park bloggers and podcasters, are highlighting …
The largest African American women and girls’ public health nonprofit in the U.S., GirlTrek encourages women to walk, support advocacy efforts and lead a civil rights-inspired health movement. Please consider joining us in supporting this important work by making a donation.
Melanin Base Camp aims to increase the representation of minorities in the media, in advertising and in the stories minorities tell themselves about the great outdoors. Learn more about this organization and see how you can support them.
Portland, OR-based nonprofit Love Is King partners up with the Alaska Wilderness League and introduces Operation ROAM. For their first expedition, a group of BIPOC outdoor activists heads to the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to meet Gwich’in leaders and immerse themselves in northern Alaska’s landscapes and culture.
Wilderness Inquiry directly serves people from all walks of life: diverse youth, individuals with differing abilities, and others who face barriers of use to public lands and waterways. Their programs help connect people to the outdoors and each other.
Looking for ways to support diversifying public lands and outdoor spaces? In May, we’re sharing the work of Get Out Stay Out/Vamos Afuera, an amazing organization that focuses on Indigenous Migrant Youth populations and their relationship with the outdoors.
This month’s featured outdoor diversity organization is based in San Antonio, Texas. Camp Founder Girls is a week-long summer camp program from Black Outside, Inc. Their mission is to connect Black girls to nature through culturally relevant programs, ensuring safe and equitable outdoor spaces. Read more and support!
Our monthly outdoor diversity feature, Love Is King views access to the outdoors as a human right, knowing that all people deserve to benefit from what nature has to offer. Their mission is to create a humanitarian movement, through love, empathy and respect, where all children, families and communities of color can have equitable and safe access to the outdoors.
The Cleveland-based organization See You At The Top (SYATT) aims to make outdoor spaces more accessible to people of color, while simultaneously creating joyful experiences in them. Consider supporting this month’s organization by donating to their cause and/or sharing their content and work on social media.
Black Kids Adventures, Inc. is a non-profit organization based out of Huntsville, Alabama working towards improved outdoor diversity and inclusion. Their mission is to make sure all Black and Brown families and children have equal access to outdoor opportunities and adventures. Since the founding of Black Kids Adventures in June of 2020, the organization has served over 100 people in the Huntsville community.
Part of the Appalachian Mountain Club, the Youth Opportunities Program currently trains about 400 educators per year. This allows tens of thousands of young people to experience the outdoors across New England and the greater New York City areas. We encourage you to learn more about and support this amazing organization.
The outdoor diversity organization we’re highlighting this month (October) is the Charles Roundtree Bloom Project. A San Antonio-based non-profit, they create communal healing spaces in the outdoors for youth impacted by incarceration.
Washington, D.C.-based company Soul Trak Outdoors connects communities of color to outdoor spaces. They do that through youth, college and adults programs that focus on community building, social justice, outdoor recreation and education. Find out how you can support them here.
Our public lands should be enjoyed by all of us, but when we look into who is getting access to our lands, we see alarmingly disproportionate statistics that highlight a gap between demographics and park visitations. As national park enthusiasts and outdoor recreation advocates, we are committed to addressing racism within our industry. This post outlines how we’re planning to do this.