Blue Sky Fund’s mission is provide transformational experiences for urban youth through outdoor education. We should serve about 500 at-risk children in 2010 by giving them experiences to be active participants in learning and in the natural world around them. Our founder, Fritz Knapp, began sending kids to summer camp out of a personal passion to connect at-risk City of Richmond students with the summer camp experience. Three children were sent to camp in 2003. Each year, the number of children going to camp increased. Dreams for our city’s youth grew throughout 2006, and Blue Sky Fund began to take shape. We soon took steps to include more in-house programming throughout the school year, in addition to funding camp tuitions.
Today, Blue Sky Fund continues sending kids to summer camps, as well as provides year-round opportunities for children to learn through outdoor adventures. Our participants are building teamwork on the ropes course, testing their expertise with a fishing rod, and pushing their physical and emotional strength by backpacking in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Our three main year-round programs include Explorers, a science environmental education program, Outward Bound Together, a program that uses the wilderness experience to unite teens across the Richmond region, and Adventuring, which is a weekly program that exposes youth to many different outdoor expeditions such as fishing, rock climbing, and hiking. Through experiential learning, our kids are transformed:
The transformation
We will transform the inside…..by going outside
From idle…..to active
From a tough exterior…..to a strong interior
From self-centered…..to team oriented
From surviving the system…..to changing the community
From street smart…..to intellectually curious
From reactionary…..to responsible
From isolation…..to unity
From follower…..to trailblazer
From survival of the fittest…..to awe in the Creator
From dim opportunities…..to Blue Skies!
