Partner Story
AT A GLANCE: Since 2022, our role in this partnership has gotten smaller by design - from building an entire summer camp to simply getting Project Kindred's young leaders to Madison.
Mario Sinclair
Adriana Salgado Santiago
Yaa Engel
Tom Cramer
Our Partner
Yaa Engel is Executive Director of Project Kindred.
Location: Milwaukee, WI (Madison trip in 2026)
Audience: Youth leaders (Pathmakers cohort)
Focus: Leadership development
Program Brief
When we first partnered with what is now Project Kindred in 2022, they had a vision for Camp Kindred – but no camp. So that year, we brought a lot: staff training, camping gear, food, transportation, campsites, and the operational backbone for five full weeks of on-site summer camp. No bunks and commercial kitchens for us – we made it all happen in a state park.
Then something good happened. Project Kindred kept growing. As their staff and programming developed, our role changed with them. Programs became more collaborative. Their leaders took on more of the work. By 2025, Project Kindred staff were working alongside ours on multi-day programs rather than relying on us to run the show.
And in 2026, Executive Director Yaa Engel and her team came to us with an entirely different idea. Their Pathmakers leadership cohort was headed to Madison. They wanted young people to spend time at the State Capitol, visit a university, meet young people from the Madison community, and see firsthand how decisions made at the state level connect back to life in Milwaukee.
They didn’t need us to invent that program. They didn’t need us to teach their leadership curriculum. They needed a bus and some backup. So that’s what we provided.
Five years into the partnership, that’s probably the part we’re proudest of. Success doesn’t mean making a partner dependent on Get Outside Bus. It means being useful as their ambitions and capabilities change – from helping build an entire camp one year to simply getting their young leaders safely to Madison the next. We are there to support, not to lead.
Originally, run a full camp - Project Kindred's own site was unavailable and the group had nowhere to go. Later, develop their young people through immersive experiences that would really challenge them.
Housing, feeding, transporting and supporting nearly 40 campers - or setting up expeditions alone. Both sat outside Project Kindred's risk management wheelhouse.
Get Outside Bus turned empty parks into a ready-to-rock camp with kitchens, tents, areas to hang out in the rain, and ideas for where to go and what to explore. The next year, the Choose Your Own Adventure model let young people at Kindred build the experience themselves, growing as leaders.
Kindred youth really got to show up as their authentic selves, and lead in a situation with real consequences.
It's already happening - Get Outside Bus took Project Kindred to Madison for a weekend workshop with state leaders in the spring.
