National Recreation Foundation Awards Get Outside Bus $24,000 for Choose Your Own Adventure
A $24,000 grant funds up to three custom wilderness leadership programs, each designed with the partner organization that will lead it.
MILWAUKEE, WI – December 8, 2023
The National Recreation Foundation has awarded Get Outside Bus a $24,000 grant to run Choose Your Own Adventure programs, a set of custom wilderness leadership programs built with community partner organizations.
In this unique model, young people do not just go on a trip, they plan the trip. Working with a Get Outside Coach, students will go through a series of workshops that teach collaboration, decision making, advocacy, and more. They pick the sites, plan the meals, make bookings, and otherwise build the experience from scratch. A Get Outside Bus than arrives to provide the equipment and resources necessary for the trip to run.
That design is the point. Most outdoor programming asks a community organization to send its young people somewhere else, to be led by someone else. Choose Your Own Adventure keeps the leadership with the people who already hold the relationships, and removes the logistics that usually make a week in the backcountry impossible for them.
The National Recreation Foundation supports organizations working to expand recreation access for young people who have the least of it.
Programs funded by the grant will run through 2024, primarily in the summer.
“So many youth programs in our space focus on going on the trip, not planning it. But if you don’t plan it, how do you learn to go back on your own? These programs fundamentally address that challenge, and I’m so grateful to our partners who helped design some incredible outings.”
— Micah Leinbach, Executive Director
Media Contact
Micah Leinbach, Executive Director
micah@getoutsidebus.com
(414) 803-7080