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Martin LeBlanc
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Wednesday, December 31, 2008
A Year to Remember
Seattle, WA
It has been quite a year to remember for the Sierra Club's Building Bridges to the Outdoors Program. We have had a complete staff transition but through all of this we have helped our partners get out over 20,000 underserved children outside accross the country. As happy as we are with our volume numbers the real value that I have observed is in some of the great young people who have had life changing experiences through the Building Bridges to the Outdoors Program. In New Mexico I saw Maya Quintana from the Zia Pueblo south of Santa Fe had never spent the night outdoors until she became involved in the Santa Fe Mountain Center's www.sf-mc.com outdoor programs. This experience helped Maya begin to sense her heritage and how important the outdoors was for her family. All the way accross the country at the Bronx Lab School in New York City we helped engage over ten young people in attending the joint Sierra Student Coalition and BBTO joint SPROG near San Juan, Puerto Rico. This was the first time any of the young people at the Bronx Lab School had an opportunity to visit Puerto Rico and learn about thier heritage. These experiences change lives and I am so proud that our program played a role in this.
We held three major events in Washington state, New Mexico and Chicago. These events have helped raise the profile of outdoor education and built important new alliances to showcase how connecting children with the outdoors can help children's health, their academic performence and give them leadership and build self-esteem to help all of our communities. The Crenshaw High School Eco Club in Los Angeles who has been a partner from 2002 is now the largest after-school program at Crenshaw with over 400 members. Building Bridges to the Outdoors has become a leader in the movement to connect children with the outdoors but 2009 is going to be a critical year in moving our issue forward.
With the election of President Barack Obama things in Washington are going to move at a faster pace then ever before. It is going to be critical to allign the issue of connecting children with the outdoors with service and creating new green jobs so young people in all of our communities have an opportunity to have a career in a field that not only provides them with a high quality of life but also helps our country become the leader in the fight against global warming.
I am so proud of all of the great work of our staff and volunteers have done in 2008 and also want to take a moment to remember former Sierra Club organizer Shannon Harps who tragically passed last New Years eve.
So many more children are getting outside then when we started five years ago and I am seeing more diverse partners engaged on this issue. That being said the time is now to work together to move this issue forward.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
A Changed World
Eugene, Oregon
What a world we have become. On November 4th, more Americans then ever came together and voted. Barack Obama is now the President-elect of the United States of America. Once again America has shown that we are hard to define and we have gone in a much different direction then anyone would have predicted. We have elected a man who outlined he wanted to bring change to America but I am struck by how his character and background is so uniquely American and I believe it will lead us to become a more intergrated part of the global village. What an exciting time to live and youth and millinialls help lead us on this new path. I spent time in the weeks before the election in far reaching places from Ashville, North Carolina to our Noarthern cousin in, Jasper Alberta. Everyone I spoke with was facinated by the election and the amount of people involved and engaged. I saw first hand a mother and a daughter in New Mexico connected by a common theme to perform an action in voting that they realize play such a critical role in their quality of life. It was humbling and inspiring at the same time but what a challenge awaits all of us.
Money is no longer growing on trees and we all know that we are entering a period away from hyper individualism and mass consumerism. Natural areas will be hurt as funding will be scarce. The local park I tell people to go together as families will be harder to protect. But it is somewhere that is free even if time becomes harder for most hard working Americans to find. We may finally get away from the mall for a while. We need a challenge to embolden us to showcase our strength and come together and make us all proud again. A new commitment has to materilize to put aside labels and finding new ways to create jobs in a new green economy which can put us back on a path to economic stability and cultural branding. If they wear Michael Jordan jerseys and think Obama is the coolest thing ever our youth leading a green economic revolution would be a stunning turnaround in American desitiny.
I point to Eugene, Oregon which was the final stop in my rollorcoaster off the last six weeks as a community that wants to be a leader in the movement to create change. In Eugene I spoke to a mixture of community leaders ranging from the City Manager to Director of the local YMCA and Forest Service Ranger originally from North Carolina. It was a diverse mixture of groups that spoke about solution to transportaion, zoning, school standards. Chris Ordingser, the Executive Director of Friends of Buford Park and Mount Pigsah said it best when he said "let's come down from our silos and go outside together and take our community back". They are arranging to put down some tent poles with certain organizations and groups and invite everyone in to work together to begin to address the challenges they face in getting every child outside to experience the "rain" of Eugene. At my night speech at the Shed a converted downtown church where my mother's favorite singer Joan Baez was singing the next night I saw a community have a frank and sometimes uncomfortable discussion on the barriers on this issue. They are significant snapshots at our daily life. Liability and fear can lead to hard truths being examined. But the overriding messege was hope. Hope that Eugene has a plan to figure it out through working together and making sure that every child can play in the rain.
Every community as its own way. The change we now have is because each community wants to be empowered as they were in the last election by a network that surpassed anything created before it. It was based on the positive power of change. We can come together and solve these problems but I realize we have to do it together as simple as that sounds. I think the Sierra Club and our dedication to making sure we can engage communities to empower themselves to be leaders in green energy and help create green jobs will blaze a new path to peace and prosperity.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Dunes ’08 with the Boys & Girls Clubs of Chicago
By Jackie Ostfeld, National Youth Representative
Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, Indiana
I can’t think of a better way to launch into October, than traipsing through the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore with a bunch of teenagers from the Boys & Girls Clubs of Chicago. Crisp cool nights and the arrival of the dark-eyed junco signaled that winter was already on its way up north in Indiana. I spent the weekend with nearly 70 Boys & Girls Clubs teenagers from the Keystone and Torch leadership clubs at the Indiana Dunes Environmental Learning Center.
Dunes Learning Center staff set the stage with outdoor team building activities when the youth arrived. Throughout the weekend, we learned how to determine the health of a river, by dip-netting for macro-invertebrates, testing the water for pollutants such as nitrates and phosphates and measuring the dissolved oxygen content of the water. We also learned about succession, while hiking through a moraine. We were able to visualize nature’s tendency to move from prairie to forest and learn about the varying factors that prevent prairie from succeeding to forest, i.e. fire and grazing animals. On the final hike to the Dunes at Lake Michigan, we learned about the natural and human history of the region. From the Dunes, we could see steel mills on either side of the National Lakeshore. As in past years, the highlight for most teenagers was the night hike, including a short fear-conquering solo hike along trails lit only by star light and a crescent moon. On the night hike, we learned how to more deeply engage all of our senses to experience the dark world of nocturnal species.
The best part of the weekend for me, however, was helping a young man from the Boys & Girls Club put a caterpillar that had fallen back into a tree. The care he used and the compassion in his eyes as he brought the caterpillar to safety made my October. As small a gesture as it may seem to most of us, these are the moments that shape our relationship with the natural world. Already looking forward to Dunes ’09.
Sierra Club and Boys & Girls Clubs of Chicago are partnering to connect youth with nature. Through Building Bridges to the Outdoors’ funding, teenagers from the Boys & Girls Clubs of Chicago have been able to visit the Indiana Dunes Environmental Learning Center for the past four years. This year, we are expanding our partnership to provide youth with even more opportunities to both get outside and give back to their communities. Many clubs within the Boys & Girls Clubs system are volunteering to Adopt a Forest Preserve in and around Chicago, where they will remove invasive species, monitor the health and diversity of species, and sow seeds of native species.
Thursday, October 02, 2008
It's the Outdoors, Stupid!
Santa Fe, New Mexico
In 1992 many credit President Bill Clinton's victory on a strategy suggested by the Ragin Cajun James Carville that they focus on the economy hence the phrase it's the economy stupid. Building Bridges to the Outdoors along with our partner the Santa Fe Mountain Center http://www.sf-mc.com/ recently hosted the Leave No New Mexico Child Inside Forum http://www.sierraclub.org/youth/newmexico/ in Santa Fe . The Forum brought leaders from accross the State of New Mexico including Lt. Governor Diane Denish and Santa Fe Mayor David Koss together along with national leaders Richard Louv and Cheryl Charles from the Children and Nature Network http://www.cnaturenet.org/ to discuss how we can work in unison to come up with common sense community based solutions to find strategies and ways to connect New Mexican children with the outdoors. During the panel discussion a young participant Maya Quintana looked at the crowd and said something that was so simple but resonated with all of us in such a profound way "It is pretty easy, we just need to get kids outside and nature takes care of the rest". It made me think about how the outdoors does give us such a wonderful platform in which we can engage young people from all walks of life in finding common ground through the outdoors. Looking around the room at the Forum I saw leaders from Pueblos, the social justice community and leaders from every political stripe struck by such a simple staement from a young natural leader.
Talking about natural leaders the Sierra Club along with the Children and Nature Network and the North Face hosted in Nebraska City, Nebraska the home of Arbor Day a gathering of over thirty young people who have shown leadership in their communities around the issue of connecting youth and the outdoors. An incredible amount of leadership was shown as young people discussed the ways we can work to find pathways to engage more youth leadership in the children and nature movement. Some points made were that we need to engage and showcase career paths and opportunities for young people. We will be working with this group to put together a Natural Leaders summit in mid 2009.
On the legislative front the Federal No Child Left Inside bill passed through the US House of Repersentatives http://www.cbf.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=34303.0 last week. Jackie Ostfeld our National Youth Rep was instrumental in its passage and worked with our Sportsmen team http://sierrasportsmen.org/ to work for its passage. The bill will need to pass through the Seante next year but it now has tremendous momentum. It showcases how the issue of connecting children and nature is resonating accross the country!
Here is a link to spot that Marcia Cross, star of Desperate Housewives did for BBTO. The print ad was showcased in Entertainment Weekly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqep0atXz24
Fall is here but nothing like seeing the colors change with family and friends!
Monday, September 29, 2008
It all about Partners Stupid!
Santa Fe, New Mexico
In 1992 when Bill Clinton ran for his first term as President, one of his lead advisors the Ragin Cajun James Carville
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
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