Friday, December 21, 2007

A Groundbreaking Year for BBTO

Albuquerque, New Mexico

BBTO just finished wrapping up it's final event of 2007 here in New Mexico. Michael Casuas, our Youth Rep brought together a diverse and distinguished panel of invitees to a sold out National Hispanic Cultural Center to hear Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods speak. It was a great eveing as Rich pointed out that "New Mexico is the only state that lives up to its liscence plate moniker 'The Land of Enchantment". The event was attneded by Lt Governor Diane Denish who outlined her support for the Building Bridges to the Outdoors project's goal of giving every New Mexican child an outdoor experience. New Mexico is at a tipping point with its passage of the Outdoor Classrooms bill http://www.sierraclub.org/youth/newmexico/downloads/StateParks42407eventPR.pdf
and the richness and diversity of the coalition supporting the goal of giving every New Mexican child a special place outdoors.

I sometimes have to pinch myself to see how far BBTO has come this year. Through our targted grantmaking we have given over 9,000 children an outdoor experience. We have also held major events in Washington DC supporting the National Military Family Association's Operation Purple Camps as well as the Leave No Child Inside Forum in Los Angeles and the New Mexico BBTO event. We were also proud to work with the Sierra Student Coalition and hold two trainings in California and New Mexico that helped train over 50 diverse young people on enviornmental leadership in their community.

The two accomplishments I am most proud of by BBTO this year was our Leave No Child Summit in New Hampshire which had over 750 people attend in Concord on a cold Tuesday afternoon in November after Thanksgiving. To see so many people dedicated to come and create action items on how we can get children outdoors was amazing and gave me hope we can solve this problem together. The passage of the Leave No Child Inside Act http://www.parks.wa.gov/NoChildLeftInside/ in my home state of Washington was a highlight of frankly my life so far. To know that thousands of children are going to get a special place outdoors through the $1.5 million granted by the state is outstanding.

None of this great work would have been possible without the wonderful dedication of Team BBTO who made it all happen. Amit Rana, Britt Glass, Michael Casuas and our lead volunteers Bill Vanderberg and Juan Martinez have truly taken it to a new level http://www.sierraclub.org/youth/team.asp.

A special thanks goes to Bill Arthur of the Sierra Club for his guidence and support. A true friend and mentor.

I also must thank Ricard Louv who without his vision much of this would not be possible. The true philosopher pushing the movement.

Enough of the backslapping, it is now time to get to work in 2008. As happy as I am with our progress and the progress of the movement, the time for action is now. I will not sleep well until I know every child from an inner city Los Angeles kid to a young person from rural New Mexico on a Pueblo gets their special place outdoors!

Have a happy holidays and let's get more children outdoors in 2008!