A week without a phone?

Last summer BCM asked teens that had just returned from backpacking to answer some of our most frequently asked questions by potential participants. The responses ranged from funny to thoughtful but one of the best was when we asked what it was like to be away from your phone for a week:

Personalize your fundraising page URL

Did you know that you can personalize the URL for your personal page to make it easier for family and friends to find?

When you’re logged into your fundraising page, click on the personal page tab, then click on the URL settings link:

You can then change the URL to something more easy to remember and share with your friends, family, and coworkers!

 

Fundraising Friday: Climbing Tournament at Local Indoor Gym

Here’s a fundraising idea from our SFS Fundraising Guide:
•Contact a local climbing gym and ask if they are willing to host your fundraising tournament. You will need to request that they create 5-10 routes of different difficulties and rate the grades in order to assign points on competition
day. You will also need to settle upon a flat per person rate that will cover climb time and donation amount. No need to include gear rentals-people will either have their own or know rental fees are separate.
•Ask local businesses to donate items/services for prizes. Some ideas are outdoor gear stores, sporting good stores, restaurants, etc.
•Create flyers for the event. Include date, time, location, minimum donation to participate and prizes. Also, include that it is a fundraising event
and what the money will benefit. Post the flyers in the climbing gym, prize donors’ venues and other places throughout the community.
•Create point sheets to use on the day of the competition. This sheet should include a place to put their name and a number, letter or symbol
to represent the different routes. Each route should have three point amounts. The first will be the highest for those that complete the route
on the first time. The second number will represent the points if they get it on the second try and the third will be the lowest amount for completing the route after two tries. The participant will circle their point total. Also, include two blank boxes next to the point total. This will be for two people who witnessed the
route completion to initial.
•At the end of the competition, collect all score sheets from participants. Add up all points and create different categories, such as Advanced, Intermediate or Beginner. Depending on how many prizes you have to distribute, award the
top number of winners in each category. Award the prizes and celebrate a successful event!

Outdoor Educators Institute: Curtys’ Story

BCM & the Foundation for Youth Investment have partnered for the past couple of years to put on a 10 week training program called the Outdoor Educator’s Institute.

The Outdoor Educators Institute develops the next generation of culturally relevant outdoor educators by building competencies and leadership skills in young adults from economically challenged urban communities, specifically those of racially and socio-economically diverse backgrounds. For youth, it provides a clear path to a profession through best-in-class trainings, standardized curriculum, and collaborative field partnership. For the industry, OEI establishes the method by which the next generation of racially and socio- economically diverse outdoor educators are prepared for service.

Here’s a story from one of our recent graduates:

Thank you OEI for opportunities that never reached my community before. For helping me pass barriers and knock down closed doors, because I live in a society that tells me if I make it to the age of 21 without a  criminal background I am a success story and that in order to be successful I have to act like the community that I come from didn’t have an impact on me and help to mold me. The truth is I didn’t grow up with my parents my mother passed away when I was three and I didn’t meet my father until he was practically on his death bed and paralyzed on the whole left side of his body. I was raised by my grandmother who was to old to teach a young boy how to be a man especially when she also had to raise my big sister and my female cousins all on a social security check in a one bedroom apartment. She did the best she could. To help her was a host of my crack addicted uncles and aunties who envied the attention she did give me, so its

safe to say life wasn’t the best. Today at age 21 with no criminal background and alive, of course, I am what my neighborhood would call a success story. but that title does more harm than it does justice because everyday when I wake up I don’t feel like a success story, but thanks to OEI I can smile and feel confident that I have a direction to go in, instead of aimlessly wondering through life like I’ve been doing for the last 21 years.

Thank you, Outdoor Educators Institute, and everyone who made this possible.