Teens to Trails’ Biannual Trip Lottery provides Outing Clubs with the opportunity to win trips to go ice fishing, hiking, winter camping, or to visit places like Maine Botanical Gardens and the National Toboggan Championships.
Hiram, Maine – September 28, 2020
The Outing Club at Sacopee Valley High School, The Sacopee Diehard Hikers, recently won a free trip to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens as part of their membership with the Brunswick-based organization Teens to Trails. Twice a year, in the spring and fall, Teens to Trails opens up a trip lottery. This fall’s lottery offered outings with Maine organizations and partners like Rewild Maine, Maine Path and Paddle, and Ten Apple Farm.
Teens to Trails’ Program Manager, Jeanne Christie, relates that “Trip lotteries are a chance for teenagers to go places they’ve never been; to learn outdoor skills, to play and be outside with their friends—and maybe make some new ones."
Teens to Trails provides Maine high school students with the opportunity to experience time outdoors with peers and feel a strong sense of belonging in their social spaces and their communities. The experiences that Teens to Trails strives to offer foster caring relationships for each other, ourselves, and our planet. The organization supplies gear, grants, and logistical assistance to outing clubs across the state, aiming to alleviate the burdens placed on club leaders and reduce social, financial, and cultural barriers to the outdoors.
The outing club’s trip, which is free entry into the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, was offered as part of a generous gift from CMBG. The gift provides six clubs the opportunity to explore the 250-acre property containing formal gardens and trails along the water. Providing free and highly reduced programming is a cornerstone of Teens to Trails’ programming which allows outing club advisors, who are also often teachers, avenues to bring their outing clubs outside with few logistical and financial barriers.
Outing club advisor and SVHS principal, Britt Wolfe, says “Our outing club, the Sacopee Diehard Hikers, has benefited tremendously from our involvement with Teens to Trails. Our kids love the statewide destination gatherings, skill clinics, and leadership conferences they have attended. As a result of Teens to Trails, our kids have gotten to try outdoor activities that they would not have had the opportunity to participate in otherwise, including sea kayaking, canoeing on the Ossipee River, winter fat biking, and hiking at Acadia National Park.”
Despite the ongoing challenges that these schools face as a result of COVID-19, Teens to Trails remains committed to supporting their outing clubs and providing safe and accessible ways for outings clubs to get outdoors; supporting 24 clubs all over the state.