Mountain Kids!
Grants Awarded
Mountain Kids! is an outdoor education and adventure program for children based in Santa Fe. We foster a sense of community and personal challenge while instilling a love of nature. Through our Local Outdoor Learning Adventures (LOLA) Four Seasons program we will provide students from four classrooms at low-income public schools with seasonal, curriculum-connected outdoor adventures; Fall, Winter and Spring, culminating in a full week of outdoor adventure camp during Summer 2023. In addition, teachers will be provided with support for outdoor classrooms, and parents will be invited to join field trips into the mountains to ignite family adventures.
The Mountain Kids! Four Seasons program aims to provide underserved students in Santa Fe Public Schools with enriching outdoor adventures throughout the school year and a free summer camp experience at Swan Park. By following students from the 2021-22 school year and evaluating their progress annually, the program seeks to foster personal growth and community engagement among participants while enhancing access to nature-based education.
The program aims to produce a three-minute video that highlights Mountain Kids!' outdoor equity initiatives and their benefits for children, families, and the community. By showcasing the importance of outdoor learning and the Outdoor Equity Fund, the video will engage participants, donors, and stakeholders, ultimately fostering stewardship for the environment among future generations.
Local Outdoor Learning Adventures empowers K-8th grade teachers to develop outdoor learning environments, facilitating experiential education for their students. Through bi-monthly training and ongoing support, 18 educators will engage students in meaningful outdoor experiences, culminating in an end-of-year adventure to a state park, national forest, or cultural site, benefiting both participants and the wider community.
The Four Seasons program strives to provide underserved youth in Santa Fe and their families with access to outdoor recreation and education, focusing on nature connection and environmental stewardship. Engaging students in outdoor activities such as hiking, mountain biking, and camping, the program also offers education on seasonal changes, wilderness skills, and earth's natural elements. It primarily serves students from El Camino Real Academy and several local community initiatives, with a growing enrollment and a continuous study of outdoor education's long-term impact on students.
OUR MISSION Mountain Kids! is an outdoor education and adventure program for children based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. We aim to foster a sense of community and personal challenge, while instilling a love of nature and all that it provides. WE OFFER We offer hands-on adventures in nature through exploration, imaginative play, games, stories, songs, art, hiking, natural history, backpacking, mountain biking and good-old fashioned fun! For children ages 5-12, and 13-16 for our Counselor- in-Training program. OUR HISTORY Mountain Kids! began in 2009 out of a mother/educator’s desire to connect her children and their peers with nature. With a borrowed “Adventure Van” meeting in their backyard, a handful of children and adults began to play in the mountains three days per week during the hot month of June. Fifteen years later, our community has grown, and we have served more than 4000 children from Santa Fe and beyond. OUR PHILOSOPHY With the current trends of nature deficit disorder and our highly scheduled, technology-driven lives, Mountain Kids! aims to hearken back to simpler times where child-centered play in nature was the norm. BENEFITS Mountain Kids! aims to unplug our children and “Leave No Child Inside.” Children who play in the natural world enjoy a wealth of benefits, including better physical and mental health and improved focus and concentration. OUR VISION Our goal is to reach all children in Santa Fe and beyond, helping to create a healthy new generation of stewards that care about the earth and each other. OUR PROGRAMS Mountain Kids offers 12 weeks of summer camp, school field trips, and out-of-school time programs. With past Outdoor Equity Funds, we developed LOLA (Local Outdoor Learning Adventures); a Teacher Training to support teachers to take learning outside (this was especially important during Covid and a great launch point for continued outdoor learning). As a part of LOLA, we led students from El Camino Real Academy (ECRA) and Nina Otero on field trips to our local mountains. Our goal is to continue to work with students from ECRA during all four seasons as they grow. Our goal is to measure the impact of seasonal outdoor learning throughout their elementary years. As a part of the program, we encourage parents to join the field trips to develop a culture of outdoor play for entire families. To this end, we are offering a free picnic and day of outdoor games and hikes to families at Hyde State Park in April 2023. This will be a part of the Santa Fe City Nature Challenge and parents will be offered a free gas card for participating. In 2023 we developed a partnership with Communities in Schools and Reading Quest to get their students out to play. We have developed a Friday after school program to connect these kids to nature every week. This program is privately funded and will launch in January 2024.