Meet Bring it Outside, one of OutGrown’s core community programs

CREATED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH OUR FRIENDS AT L.L.BEAN

Time spent together outdoors as a family and with community is the focus for OutGrown’s “Bring it Outside” program. We encourage and support parents in getting outside with their children by providing pathways and nurturing relationships that lead to a life-long love of nature.

It all began with a hike—a venture outdoors that was much more than a breath of fresh air and stretching of legs with babies in tow. It was the start of a supportive community and an opportunity to overcome the isolation that new parents often experience.

Making friends and finding judgment-free environments and low-pressure spaces in which to breathe fresh air are integral in helping new families build connections and habits of spending time together outside. It’s the power of community building in action—something we witnessed as our organization grew—but we realized that those who may need this community the most were challenged by accessibility or lack of support.

As an organization, we knew that getting outside was beneficial for children and parents alike—but there was something missing

So, we set out to find ways to bridge those gaps.

Bridging the Gap

Our organization started with community-led hike events that any family could lead, and every family was welcome to join. Thousands of adults, babies, and young children have joined an average of 1,200 hike events each month across North America. 

And yet, we see a gap in who shows up. 

We realized that families who might need us most—families experiencing higher rates of stress, more isolation, with less support, and fewer resources due to cultural, physical, socio-economic, language, and other barriers integral to their identities—were not showing up and joining our events. 

We asked why and began to understand the gaps in our programming that made it difficult. Some of these gaps include language barriers, transportation issues, homes where both parents work full-time jobs, lack of exposure or experience with getting outside as a healthy opportunity, a sense that going outside was either not safe or not welcoming for their particular family due to historical exclusion, social interactions that felt unsafe, or other experiences that didn’t build positive relationships with the idea of going outside. 

That’s when we built the “Bring it Outside” program. 

Bring it Outside offers a solution, led by community

We began working with community organizations that provide resources to these families so we could learn how to best serve them. We connected with community partners that support families in the local area, from early learning hubs to hospitals, land managers, and everything in between. Including other organizations in our programming helps weave a more robust network of support that can last beyond a single encounter with a family.

Then we built a workshop series and facilitator training to offer hands-on learning opportunities that answered questions about the basics of getting outside. We applied for grants and worked with outdoor brands to get funding and gear donations. We hired facilitators that represented the communities we were trying to serve, spoke the languages of the families we wanted to connect with, and who could directly identify with the challenges families face—and importantly—who also wanted to share their love and passion for getting outside.

Bring it Outside’s ultimate goal

Our ultimate goal is to get more families into the outdoors together—for little ones to grow up with a positive connection to nature, for parents to feel comfortable and support each other getting outside, and to help them build community and empower them to host regular outdoor events and activities. The result: a long-lasting and self-sustained OutGrown community hub. 

Today, our Bring it Outside program offers a series of facilitated workshops to the families we look to serve. 

Each workshop has a how-to component, a hands-on activity or engagement, and a community-building element. We aim to host workshops in the same place and time in nearby nature spaces that are accessible for the community we are serving. 

Printed materials, curriculum, and conversation are  offered in different languages based on the needs of our participants and surrounding community. We also provide support in the form of transportation,  gear, materials, supplies, and snacks. We ensure our facilitators are ready to answer questions, help, and generally make each workshop a fun, low-barrier opportunity for families to connect, bond, and build confidence. 

At the end of the program series, we offer a one-day family festival that brings together the families in the program, extends an invitation to  other families in the community, and have local organizations bring tables and activities to share about their services while engaging families in a fun day outside. 

Beyond our workshops, our facilitators host regular hike events in their local community. They use the same Hike it Baby/OutGrown framework of “hike” being a loose term that includes park and plays, urban strolls, and more traditional trail hikes. 

It’s amazing to see what we have become as an organization and community.

We can’t do it alone

It requires much hard work to find funding, build and support community relationships, and identify, train, and support the local facilitators who make this program possible. However, we are seeing great success so far and have an overwhelming request to keep it going where we have started it and spread it to more communities. 

Partnerships and support from those like L.L.Bean has allowed us to help Latinx and immigrant families, rural families in southern Oregon, refugee families in the Portland Metro area, and Latina women in Elizabeth, NJ. 

If you would like to learn more about Bring it Outside and how to get involved nationally or in your local community, please contact us at [email protected]. 

Click below to play our Bring it Outside Video.

Video: 

Photographs by Jenn Canjar

ABOUT OUTGROWN

OutGrown is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that works to create a world where everyone can enjoy the physical and mental benefits of spending time outside. We are focused on creating opportunities and removing barriers to access so families with babies and young children can take their first steps outside. We believe all families have the right to connect with nature, benefit from spending time outdoors and be inspired to a lifelong love of nature. Since its grassroots inception in 2013 as Hike it Baby, OutGrown is a growing community of 280,000 families and over 300 volunteers. You can find additional information on all of our programs at WeAreOutGrown.org

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