Let no child be left inside

Far too many kids today are impoverished by their lack of outside time during the summer.

As a child, my Sunnybrook neighborhood friends and I often left our homes after breakfast and didn't see the inside of a house again until supper time near nightfall.

Riding bikes up and down the old logging trail.

Playing baseball in the cow pasture.

Exploring the woods.

Building "huts" from whatever we could find.

Splashing in the creek.

Spelunking (no, we didn't always tell our parents....shhh).

Playing hide and seek.

Climbing trees.

Push mowing yards.

Drinking from the water hose.

We were rich beyond our wildest dreams.

Let’s do our best to bring today’s children out of this type of poverty, and into the vast wealth to be found by enjoying the outside world.

I estimate I have taken nearly ten thousand children hiking over the last thirty-five years. Invariably, these children (most of whom are now adults) have told me they remember these hikes more vividly than most anything that was ever taught them in a classroom.

Following are a few pics and descriptions from some of those hikes.

In this pic I am teaching history while hiking. I am gathered with children beneath the Resting Tree at Sugar Hollow Park in Bristol. Slaves are buried beneath this great old tree’s branches, on the site of what was once the old Preston Plantation. A former student of mine who became a botanist estimates the tree to be over 500 years old.

I take private school kids hiking too. Bristol is very fortunate to have the wonderful St. Anne School. Here are some of those students posing proudly here, near their creation of a natural shelter.

I have found that the first hike many children take is the first hike they take with me. Please help me change that, my friends. Every child deserves the chance to be outside in nature.

These children are now grown and out in the working world. I’ll bet every one of them can tell you about this hike. Such is the way of our senses. We are “most alive” when in the wild.

What about “attention problem” children? I have found that such children often become the best “leaders” when out in nature. Little wonder, because out here all five senses are intensely immersed (very much unlike in a standard classroom, where “listening” is too often the only sense that is fully engaged ). Therefore, anything learned out here in the wild is much more likely to be permanently imprinted upon the mind.

How many children get to run wild across a meadow these days? The joy is impossible to describe. But with a pic you can almost feel it.

He ain’t heavy. He’s my brother. So much of what we do involves building “trust”. Gathering snails out of Beaver Creek here.

Inside a cave. Getting ready for a ghost story. Learn to face your fears in nature and it often has a remarkable way of transferring to everyday life.

I didn’t know a single one of these kids before we began our hike this day. But by the time we had spent a couple of hours in the wild woods … we were friends for life. It is always that way. Nature can do that for us all - if we let it.

These children were part of the Leadership Academy, building most of the ten plus miles of trails within Sugar Hollow Park. Good for the park. Even better for them.

I will hand out these shirts to each of the nearly 500 children who will hike with me this summer. Please read the following copy of a flyer made to support our summer hikes. Thank you, friends!