Katie George
Here at The Planet, Âwe tend to write a lot about the Sierra Club’s ICO (Inspiring Connections Outdoors) program. A volunteer-run network of trip leaders and partnered schools and social organizations, ICO has done an exemplary job of connecting children from low-income backgrounds with natural spaces. But the New York City ICO group, located in the most densely populated city in the United States, is taking the program to the next level.
ICO gives children from heavily urbanized areas a chance to develop a love for the outdoors, and a deeper-rooted appreciation for the importance of the environment. These experiences, in the words of New York ICO Chair Katie George, allow the participants’ understanding of nature to come “from a real place, not an abstract place.”
“I love watching [the kids] whenever they experience something for the first time, something that we take for granted,” Katie says. “Some kids have never been in a river. It’s mind-blowing to watch. Seeing [nature] through their eyes is the most marvelous way to experience the great outdoors, and I can’t get enough of it.”
By expanding the students’ horizons, often literally, and by helping them overcome the challenge of a new environment, ICO allows its participants to go outside of their comfort zones, and accomplish things they never thought they could accomplish, whether it’s ice skating, rock climbing, or backpacking in the rain. According to Katie, the experiences students accrue in ICO give them a courage and self-confidence they don’t get in everyday city life. It opens doors that the students might have thought were impossible to pass through, like traveling the world or even just going to college in a different state.
Though ICO takes on students up to high school age, in the past there has been a need for greater focus on older youth, to encourage diversity in the Sierra Club and to build the skills for social and environmental activism in minority communities. And now, New York City ICO is taking that challenge on by pioneering the Sierra Club Youth Leadership Academy, or SCYLA.
Started 20 years ago by a child psychologist volunteering at ICO, SCYLA started as the “Cat Rock Gang,” an outdoor leadership program for victims of gang violence, named after a distinctive boulder along the Appalachian Trail in upstate New York. This program has evolved over the years, and has become a place for youth to learn leadership skills, co-lead ICO trips, and apply what they learned, becoming leaders in their own schools and communities. Some SCYLA participants started as ICO kids, while others are new. Almost all belong to ethnic minorities, and most come from the Bronx. Over the year-long program, SCYLA’s participants go through monthly leadership workshops, where the youth learn how to be attentive, confident, and self-aware, and how to inspire others.
The yearlong Leadership Academy program had been going well for years on a small scale, when in 2014 it received a grant from the Charles Hayden Foundation, allowing SCYLA to expand to a national program. The groundbreaking work done by the New York ICO is now being extended to ten other ICO groups across the country, a move that will benefit the Sierra Club, underserved urban youth, and inner city communities alike. “It inspires in kids from these schools a lifetime commitment and passion for protecting the outdoors,” says Craig Meisner, the head of SCYLA. “It gives them a grounded sense of how to make change in their communities, and the chance to spread their wings.”
ICO is always in need of volunteers, and any Sierra Club member can volunteer with their local ICO group. Learn more about Inspiring Connections Outdoors, find a group near you, or start your own.