In the past few years, I have had the wonderful opportunity to become involved with organizations like the Children & Nature Network Natural Leaders Network and Outdoor Nation, which empower individuals and communities to connect with the outdoors.
As a twenty-something Hispanic woman who came to love camping, hiking, and kayaking, I noticed there were not many people who looked like me when I was outdoors. This realization led to the idea of North Texas Kids Outside (NTKO), a local project that uses a family-centered approach to connect children to nature through camping experiences in state parks.
We won a $2,500 grant from the Outdoor Nation summit in Austin, Texas in 2012, and used the funding to take 16 families camping for their very first time.
NTKO served a total of 83 individuals, almost two-thirds of whom were under the age of 28. The majority of our families were of Hispanic descent and many spoke Spanish as their primary language. Our experiences and camping trips taught me so much about family, the outdoors, my community, and my culture.
Here are six things I learned from that experience...
[For more of this story, written by Victoria Serna, go to http://grassrootschange.net/la...-texas-kids-outside/]
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