by Ayodele Abdul-Hadi, OAK Advisor Right on the waterfront, with a serene view of the sunset and San Francisco city skyline, I was part of a group of about 200 people attending the first in-person Outdoor Afro annual Glamp Out since the COVID-19 outbreak in March 2020. The evening was a beautiful celebration of Black…
by Jackie Ostfeld, OAK Founder & Chair Sunshine and 80 degrees in Washington, DC – you couldn’t have asked for a better day to talk about the importance of nature. After a two-year pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Outdoors Alliance for Kids’ (OAK) annual OAK Week relaunched in person on Tuesday. Youth environmental…
by Tigran Nahabedian, OAK Advisor Time in nature teaches important lessons and skills, and is vital to our children’s development. But right now, access to parks and public lands is not equal across our communities, and climate change is increasingly affecting the green spaces we do have. One hundred million people in the US –…
This afternoon, OAK Steering Committee member REI Co-op posted on their Instagram account our collaborative story series featuring a Q&A with two of OAK’s amazing youth advocates, Robbie Bond of Kids Speak for Parks and Junior Ranger Tigran Nahabedian! In the stories, Robbie and Tigran both make an incredible case for full funding for the Every Kid Outdoors…
by Jayni Rasmussen, Senior Campaign Representative for the Outdoors Alliance for Kids & Youth at Sierra Club. (Originally published on the American Heart Association’s Healthy for Good Blog; cross-posted with permission) With the coronavirus disrupting daily life and increasing isolation, many people are turning to the outdoors for recreation. The increased interest in outdoor recreation…
by Jackie Ostfeld | This post was originally published on February 19, 2020 on the Sierra Club blog here. Featured photo courtesy of Marvel/Disney. I just got home from paradise, where I had the distinct honor of meeting Marvel’s newest superhero. Robbie Bond has a superpower—teleportation. With great power comes great responsibility, and Robbie is…
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact:April Thomas206.321.3850, april.thomas@sierraclub.org Outdoors Alliance for Kids and Scholastic Announce All Kids Outdoors Essay Contest WinnersNearly 2,000 Kids Nationwide Submitted Entries Washington, D.C., (May 23, 2019) — The Outdoors Alliance for Kids and Scholastic, the global children’s publishing, education, and media company, are proud to announce the winners of the All Kids…
Sweepstakes WinnerEmmanuel O., 5th Grade, Falls Church, VA All Kids Outdoors Scholastic-OAK Youth Essay ContestYouth Voices Blog Series The Outdoors And People The great outdoor spaces, aren’t they beautiful? An outdoor space is any place outside a living space where people can interact, play, and relax. This includes the backyards of homes, playgrounds for kids, sidewalks,…
Honorable Mention by Indi M., 5th Grade, McLean, VA All Kids Outdoors Scholastic-OAK Youth Essay ContestYouth Voices Blog Series The Importance of Outdoors Children’s outdoor play is rapidly diminishing, we are focusing more on sedentary lifestyles. No one can deny our simple interest with electronics now in the modern era. The outdoors are the original foundation…
Honorable MentionKatie B., 6th Grade, Ellisville, MO All Kids Outdoors Scholastic-OAK Youth Essay ContestYouth Voices Blog Series The Great Outdoors Swinging, sliding, and climbing at parks are only for fun, right? Not true! Parks and outdoor spaces are not only for fun, but are actually necessary for the world. Parks and outdoor spaces improve our health,…