These after-school clubs included tutorials on biking, camping, paddling and then monthly outings for each of these activities. Hundreds of kids came to the recruiting fairs and about 50 ended up participating. The OAC started last year by hosting recruiting events at three public high schools to see if kids (the vast majority of whom have never done any kind of outdoor activity) were interested in participating in outdoor activities. Here at the Benchmark, we couldn’t agree more, and the OAC does a bang-up job of reaching both of those goals, nearly quadrupling its reach to inner-city high school kids in just one year Why is the Outdoor Adventure Clubs is a worthy cause to support?įor a few years now, the outdoor industry has talked a lot about the need to get more kids outside and to reach more diverse audiences. They are looking for tents, sleeping bags, sleeping pads, stoves, cookware, food, flashlights – basically any camping gear you can think of. OAC would also happily accept donations from any industry vendors as well. Any person who donates gear will get a 20 percent discount to the store.ĭuring a conversation with Denny McFadden, who runs Outdoor Adventure Club (OAC), he mentioned that the next step is to get gear that the kids can keep, so that after they’ve participated in the club, done the tutorials, and gotten outside to try the activity a couple of times, they could have the gear they needed to get outside on their own. To help reach that goal, we are going to ask our customers to bring in their gently-used or new gear that they don’t want anymore, to donate to the OAC. “We know many of our customers are replacing their gear and have gently-used gear at home, so if we can be the conduit to get that gear to kids and enable kids to get outside more, then we wouldn’t miss the opportunity,” Grimes said. The retailer is looking to both industry manufacturers and local customers for help. Throughout the month of October, Benchmark is launching a gear drive to provide local youth with gear they could keep and continue to use on outdoor adventures.
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Grimes chatted with SNEWS recently about philanthropy and business and how to get the ball rolling on both. The industry veteran is currently working to support Outdoor Adventure Clubs, a project of Green Umbrella in Cincinnati, Ohio. Get access to everything we publish when youįormer executive director for the Outdoor Industries Women’s Coalition, Sally Grimes, has continued advocating for the future of the outdoor industry in her new position as the vice-president of retail operations and marketing at Benchmark Outdoor Outfitters in Cincinnati, Ohio.
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