Climbing Mentorship for At Risk Youth
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Anyone know any good mentorship programs that provide life skills and climbing instruction to troubled youth? |
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Hey Andre, |
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Ron Kauk has a program near Merced that takes at-risk kids into Yosemite Valley and such. Very much about being in tune with nature and finding your place in it. |
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Not climbing specific but Big Brothers Big Sisters does really good work. |
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Also not climbing specific, but the Sea Cadets, Civil Air Patrol and Young Marines can help shape a kid quickly. The caveat is that none of those organizations will accept drug users, dropouts, those with criminal records, ect. |
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Denver: citywild.org |
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Outward Bound has programs for this population: my husband taught any number of them in years past. |
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I'm the program director at cityWILD (.org). I don't know if you are looking in the DC area or what info you are looking for but feel free to hit me up on MP or at kevin@citywild.org. We are located in Denver. |
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Just to add a note on the OP's post, there is a big difference between "at risk" and troubled youth... Sometimes the two can overlap, but many at risk kids are not at all troubled and vica versa. |
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Urban blazers out of Philly is a great program. I've been considering starting up something in my area. Gotta look into gear/financial support and legality issues but I would love to get something going. |
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Touchstone Youth Project touchstoneyouth.org |
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I'm looking to start something up specifically for that. I'm in Colorado Springs. I see programs, but not ones that only focus on at risk youth. I think it could be great to do, and hard considering the general lack of dough. That pushes it towards being non-profit though. Contact me if you want to hear anymore, but that same question started me thinking about making a program. |
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Bay Area Wilderness Training |
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I used to be an Adventure Teacher for Youth Services Alternatives in the suburbs north of Philadelphia. It was a pretty sweet gig, I had two rock climbing gyms at different schools with cool features that I could set routes at and climb as much as I wanted to after work. The best part was that I got paid to go rock climbing, mountain biking, hiking and kayaking while helping out troubled youth. |
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By introducing them to climbing, are we helping them avoid degeneracy or giving them that last little push they need? |