Outdoor Nation supports LWCF by asking advocates to ” Take Congress Camping “
Outdoor Nation Grants to Defend LWCF, Clean Air and Water
Courtesy of the Outdoor Industry Association
When it comes to advocating for the Land and Water Conservation Fund and other federal programs that help kids enjoy the outdoors, few voices carry as much weight as those of the children themselves. With that in mind, a group of about 15 youth leaders will use a $2,500 grant from Outdoor Nation to send “Take Congress Camping” kits to campgrounds across the country. The program is one of 20 pilot projects selected by youth leaders during this year’s Outdoor Nation Youth Summit which are aimed at reconnecting American kids with the outdoors.
The kits will include a post-card template that campers can use to compose letters to their local members of Congress about how much they enjoyed their outing.
“Emails can be deleted and dismissed,” said Emilie Colby, the 20-year-old who helped shape the idea during the Outdoor Nation summit in Minneapolis in July. “With petitions you just tack your name on to a form letter and no one personalizes those emails. This will be written by the kids when they are sitting around the campfire at night.”
The kit, which will consist of a sealed plastic bag filled with postcards, a template and perhaps crayons and a survey card, was among four projects approved by about 100 delegates at the Minneapolis summit.
“It started as a joke actually,” recalled Colby. “I said ‘wouldn’t it be funny if we took Congress camping’, I mean like literally took Nancy Pelosi camping. But then we said ‘Wait, it will take more than $2,500 to do that.’ But how can we do it vicariously? That’s when we came up with idea.”
Colby, who is living in New Hampshire, is now working with more than a dozen other college-aged youth in Minnesota, Michigan and other states to refine the idea and submit a formal plan to Outdoor Nation by Oct. 7. They hope to send hundreds of kits to YMCA, Girl Scouts and camps operating in the Boundary Waters in time for their summer 2012 seasons.
The other national advocacy project to come out of Outdoor Nation is “Team Priority,” which was hatched Dan Grigas, a graduate research assistant studying fisheries at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. Grigas has learned of efforts in Congress to weaken federal clean air and water legislation which prompted him to challenge fellow delegates at the Atlanta Summit.
“I talked about how I do natural resources work and every time I turn around some agency is getting hammered, like the EPA,” said Grigas. “Education budgets are the first or second ones to go and within education, it’s outdoor education that gets cut first. Look at the state parks that are closing. There are some in government that are trying to use the deficit crisis to slide all this stuff in the back door.”
Team Priority will seek to organize face-to-face meetings with elected officials at all levels of government.
“We have folks from Alabama and Mississippi and the Virginias and all have made a commitment to get out and talk to local representatives and try to develop personal relationships with those people and determine what their priorities are.
“I’ve always stayed away from the political arena,” Grigas, 26, continued. “But as I grew up and saw how the world works, I’ve become engaged.”
