I wish my first entry of 2008 could have a brighter note but the Sierra Club lost a close friend and a wonderful colleague in Shannon Harps over the holiday. Shannon was tragically murdered on New Years eve.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/345863_capitolhill03.html

Shannon was a wonderful person and a close friend whose spirit will always live on. Team BBTO's thoughts are with her family. Below is a wonderful page on Shannon and her numerous accomplishments. Shannon truly walked the walk.

http://cascade.sierraclub.org/

As we begin 2008, Building Bridges to the Outdoors has some exciting new avenues moving forward. Here in the State of Washington we are moving forward on granting out over $1.5 million to programs working with underserved children. As Chairman of the Advisory Board helping implement the program, it has been an honor to work with such diverse partners on the Board ranging form the Woodland Park Zoo to Washington 4-H programs.  This is such an exciting step as it will get thousands of children into the outdoors. More information can be found on this program at

www.parks.wa.gov/NoChildLeftInside/

In California with the tight budget situation we are working across the State to establish a state network of Leave No Child Inside Coordinators who are going to bring local community solutions to attack the problem. We know that in California we must make sure we get a wide diverse coalition behind this issue. We have built a strong coalition including the Girl Scouts of America, the American Diabetes Association and the NAACP. We plan on bringing together all of these diverse partners together in Sacramento for a September Summit on the issue.

 

In New Mexico led by Building Bridges to the Outdoors Rep. Michael Casuas the Sierra Club is leading a coalition of groups in pursuing a 'Couch-Potato Tax' to be put on video games and television. The point of us working on this is to make folks think about how much time their children are playing indoors. Our Executive Director, Carl Pope has written a great blog entry on our efforts 

http://www.sierraclub.org/carlpope/

There are also some great stories on the New Mexico initiative, here are some great links to check out

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