Military Families and Veterans Initiative

United States Marine Corps, Sierra Club, and Hawaii

Marines Partner with Sierra Club Hawaii to Restore Popular Hiking Trail

Today's guest blogger is Jen Homcy, from our Chapter in Hawaii who are doing great work with the Kaneohe Marine Corps Base in Hawaii and other military families and veterans in the Islands.

In February, the Sierra Club Hawaii Chapter rekindled an old flame and the timing couldn't have been better.  Karley Peterson, coordinator of the Single Marine and Sailor Program (SMSP) at Kaneohe Marine Corp Base reached out to the Chapter for a volunteer partnership.  At the same time the Chapter was nurturing another partnership with the State Department of Land and Natural Resource's Na Ala Hele Trails Program. The project: To restore the most heavily used trail on Oahu, The Manoa Falls Trail. 

For many of Hawaii's visitors, this trail may be their only nature experience. Its close proximity to Waikiki and the University of Hawaii at Manoa, its short distance (0.8 miles each way), lush tropical forrest, crystal clear stream, and waterfall make it a top choice for locals, tour guides and tourists alike.  With over 100,000 hikers a year, the trail is in dire need of some serious restoration work in order to protect the natural resources and make it safe again. 

For the Hawaii Chapter, having the Marines involved has been awesome!  These men and women have come out in force giving time, muscle, and energy in such an uplifting way that I can't imagine the project without them.   

This is a year long project with two (and sometimes three) six hour work days a month. It aims to recruit an average of twenty volunteers per work day with two Sierra Club Leaders, a co-leader and coordinator, all of which are managed by a Na Ala Hele manager.  With a need for over 500 workers this year alone, the Marines have played an essential role in fulfilling those numbers.  

But the Marines are not alone. Combined with other enlisted personnel and veterans from all branches of the military, service men and women have made up over one third of the 200 volunteers on the project so far and the numbers are increasing.  

Moving forward, we will continue to nurture our new relationships, build our capacity to engage new volunteers, develop more partnerships, and work to establish a new community of service volunteers by bringing our military partnerships outdoors. 

Thank you to all of our service men and women for all that they do to protect our land and water, both here at home and overseas.  We are forever indebted to you for your service and we look forward to giving back by continuing to connect people to our open and wild spaces, the spaces you all fight so hard to protect for all Americans!  

For more information on the Hawaii porjects, please contact Jennifer Homcy at jenhomcy@sierraclubhawaii.com.

"Helping America's Military and Veteran Community experience the freedom of the land they defend"

Explore Your Parks!

When I look back on my own journey in the outdoors there were a handful of state parks where my dreams and visions of big expeditions, towering mountains, and wild rivers were first born. It was next to well-manicured campsites that I first got comfortable in a tent and learned to wander off in the woods and pretend to be days into the backcountry, miles from any road or civilization. In a way, you could say it was state parks that gave birth to my dreams of adventure.

It was with great excitement then, that two weekends ago Mission Outdoors Military Family and Veterans Initiative was able to partner alongside The North Face and Maryland State Parks on a magnificent weekend at Patapsco State Park in Maryland along with nine military families of all different ages and about 75 other volunteers and non-military families.

The event served as the annual kick off for the North Face’s Explore Your Parks program. This initiative, in many states, makes it easier for families and military families, individuals and single service members to take full advantage of their state park resources. Additionally, The North Face has donated equipment to state parks that families and individuals can rent out to ensure a positive camping experience and lower the barrier of entry into the outdoors.

Before several outdoor living classes through the Camping 101 program and all the fun of just being outside on a beautiful Maryland day, our team partnered with a great group of volunteers from the American Hiking Society and REI for a trail clean up as part of National Trails Day. Everyone got in on the action from toddlers just barely able to pull invasive species out to parents and service members who were able to get down and dirty in the mud. Weed pulling and trail maintenance are universal sports.

A big thanks also goes out to all of the amazing team at the Maryland Park Service. These fine men and women have done some amazing work in reaching out to their state’s communities, from the mountains to the sea, rural to suburban to urban, they are connecting people with the great outdoors. They have also started to develop a model in veteran and family outreach, spear headed by Christina Holden, an avid hunter, fisher, and outdoorswoman herself, that could be replicated by other states.

Rather than creating new programming specifically for veterans and military families, Maryland State Parks are simply working to make sure service members and their families are included in many of the existing programs they already have. On a sunny day in Maryland, it was apparent that the combined work of The North Face, Maryland State Parks, and Mission Outdoors was successful. You could hear the laughter through the trees and see the joy on the faces of families, some who were setting up tents for the first time, and some who were setting up tents from the 100^th time, working together to enjoy the land.

Our state parks are a fantastic resource and a great introduction to the vast public land resources we have as our privilege and right to use. As I left the weekend, I could not help but think about which first time or young camper on Maryland that day, would be the future mountain climber or Appalachian Trail through hiker in a few years.

~Stacy Bare, OIF Veteran

Military Families and Veteran Representative to the Sierra Club

"Helping America's Military and Veteran Community experience the freedom of the land they defend"

 

 

 

 

Grizzly Tracking in Montana for Veterans, Service Members, and Families

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact:

Katie Smith

Katie@adventureandscience.org 

ASC and the Sierra Club’s Mission Outdoors Team Up to Track Grizzly Bears 

Bozeman Montana, June 4, 2012 - Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation (ASC), a Bozeman based non-profit that links scientists in need of data with adventurers who want to protect the environments they travel in, has teamed up with the Sierra Club Mission Outdoors to offer free grizzly bear tracking programs in several Western Montana mountain ranges during three weekends in September.  

These programs will be an experience of a lifetime for military veterans, their families, and members of the public to learn how to track these amazing animals and contribute to an important body of knowledge imperative to the USDA Forest Service’s understanding of grizzly bear activities in the range.  These citizen-science programs cultivate a sense of stewardship for the environment. ASC founder, Gregg Treinish explains, “When people participate in these projects, they connect with the landscape in a new way.  In addition to greatly contributing to our scientific knowledge of this area, volunteers will gain a profound connection to the Western Montana ranges and one of their most charismatic species.”   

ASC’s grizzly tracking citizen-science program is in its second year, and the partnership with the Sierra Club will increase the reach and scope of the program both to foster an ethic of stewardship and an appreciation for wilderness, in addition to honoring military veterans and families.  Participants will spend two days tracking and two nights camping and will receive training not only on the areas they are traveling in, but also in non-invasive grizzly bear tracking techniques and DNA collection.  

The experience of learning how to track animals in the wild and contributing to a body of science is rewarding, especially for those involved in Sierra Club Mission Outdoors whose bonds may have been tested while family members were away serving their country.  Stacy Bare, the Sierra Club’s Military Family and Veterans Initiative coordinator, attributes the healing power of being outside and discovering the natural world as one of the best ways to connect with family.  “You can never go into the mountains and feel unchanged. When you're working together with such amazing animals like grizzlies, you have a touchstone experience. When things get tough, you have a wonderful experience or a memory to return to and you know you can get outside on your own with your family in a fun, safe way,” says Bare.     

This free opportunity is open to members of the public as well as military veterans and families and will take place on August 31 - September 2, September 7 - September 9, September 21 - 23, 2012.  For more information or to sign up for any or all weekends, please visit http://www.adventureandscience.org/trackbears.html.

About Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation

Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation was founded in January of 2011 with the understanding that many people traveling in the outdoors genuinely want to do more for the places they visit but often struggle with how to help. ASC exists to bridge this gap by pairing adventure athletes already traveling to some of the earth's most difficult-to-reach places with the scientists who need information from these areas. ASC also has the goal of creating unique and innovative learning experiences about science. while also saving the scientific and conservation communities millions of dollars in data collection costs.  For more information visit www.adventureandscience.org

About the Sierra Club Mission Outdoors

Mission Outdoors is Sierra Club's initiative to provide access to outdoor experiences to people of all ages and backgrounds.  Through direct programming, advocacy and education, Mission Outdoors aims to give all Americans a meaningful outdoor experience. Read more at http://www.sierraclub.org/missionoutdoors

 

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