Many times on this blog I have commented on all of the steps we need to make to ensure that we get more children connected to nature. Last week in Olympia, Washington over sixty people who were critical in passing the No Child Left Inside Act came together to celebrate the first round of grants which are to be awarded on April 1st. The bill initiated a program through Washington State Parks which will give out $1.5 million to outdoor education programs serving at-risk youth. The application deadline closed on February 27th and amazingly over 235 programs applied with funding requests of 8.9 million! If this does not show the demonstrated need that communities have in connecting children with the outdoors I don't know what will. Richard Louv spoke passionately at the event about the leadership the Sierra Club and others are showing in creating real change in our communities in getting funding to help established and new outdoor education programs which are trying to build sustainability into their programs. Sally Jewell the CEO of REI www.rei.com spoke as well and talked about all of the great work that REI is doing on working with diverse audiences around the country and trying to engage a new generation of underserved communities with outdoor recreation. The true stars of the night though were students from John Muir Elementary School in Seattle who spoke about all of the great experiences they have had through their Building Bridges to the Outdoors Grant. Michelle Garcia a 4th grader summed it up best when she said "I love the outdoors because it is the best playground ever!"

Here is the website for the Washington No Child Left Inside Program

http://www.parks.wa.gov/NoChildLeftInside/

There was a good article last week examining how outdoor education can help academic achievement in the journal Scholastic America

http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3748233 

I end on a bit of a sad note as Amit Rana our California Representative is moving on to travel the world for the next six months. Amit was an invaluable member of Team BBTO and his help with our events in California and New Hampshire last year made them a success. Amit was a great person who always stepped up. Along with Amit leaving, our New Mexico Representative Michael Casaus  has been promoted to New Mexico State Director, Michael will still be engaged with BBTO and we will be hiring people in both California and New Mexico. Congratulations to Michael on his great promotion, well deserved.

It felt really good last week to know that funding is finally going out the door to connect children with a special place in nature!

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