OUR MISSION:
Equitable access to outdoor experiences for BIPOC and low income youth
Bay Area Wilderness Training envisions a generation of social and environmental leaders, inspired by positive and meaningful experiences in nature, who reflect the diversity of our local community.
NEWS
AFK Mount Baker: Crystal’s Climb
We’re teaming up with AFK participants to get the lowdown on our BAWT signature trips. Get inspired by individuals who have already fundraised their way to adventure and made a direct impact on Bay Area youth. Crystal is a creative fundraiser and adventurer who is on...
Amy’s Dispatches from GL
Meet Jim Riddell, of the Riddell Family Trust
What initially inspired you to lend your support to Oakland youth? My sister and I grew up in Berkeley, and our mother lived in Oakland for the last 14 years of her life, and it seemed Oakland always had an edge to it. Great wealth and privilege, some tremendous...
Standing Up for Roe V. Wade
Bay Area Wilderness Training staff believe our work stands vehemently against the strikedown of Roe V. Wade. We are outraged at the disdain for a person’s most intimate freedoms by the Supreme Court. One of BAWT’s primary goals is to support positive societal outcomes...
Instructor Highlight: Miranda Fry
My name is Miranda Fry and I am a Lead Instructor, Advisory Council member and Instructor Ambassador with BAWT. I identify as an educator, artist, sister, daughter and queer mixed adventurer. I'm from the Sierra foothills, but I found community in the Bay and have...
Andrea’s Half Dome Hike
We're teaming up with AFK participants to get the lowdown on our BAWT signature trips. Get inspired by individuals who have already fundraised their way to adventure and made a direct impact on Bay Area youth. Andrea - on top of being a BAWT Board Member - has gone on...
What We Do:
Outdoor Leadership Training
We offer affordable outdoor leadership skills training for teachers and youth workers.
Free Outdoor Gear Library
Free high-quality outdoor gear loaned for free for youth groups, schools and community organizations serving disadvantaged youth.
Funding & Support
Offering scholarships for training courses, and grants to support trips with youth. Offering a supportive community of peers and guidance.
Why we do what we do
We help thousands of Bay Area youth get outdoors on overnight camping and day hiking trips each year. We aim to support them in discovering their relationship to nature and their wider community.
GET INVOLVED
Come to a Volunteer Night
Learn more at a Discovery Session
Join an Adventure for Kids (AFK) Team
Support our work
Get Trained
How we help you get youth outdoors
Summit Scholarship
We strive to keep our course registration fees low and we never want a lack of financial resources to become a barrier for eager youth workers or teachers who want to bring outdoor experiences to their communities. With this scholarship program, we hope to increase access to our programs for teachers and youth workers from under-represented and marginalized communities.
Richard Louv Minigrants
Through the generosity of our supporters, BAWT offers Richard Louv Minigrants annually in the amount of $250 each. These funds help youth organizations and schools to cover the cost of venturing into the outdoors with the youth that they serve. We call this the Richard Louv Minigrant program to honor our good friend, author Richard Louv, whose book inspired Bay Area Wilderness Training founder to get started with our work.
Featured youth worker
Testimonial
“I think it is very important for more youth to have the chance to experience the outdoors. Experiencing the outdoors for me was my ticket to cleaning my life up, and I think that this can be the case for more youth; they just need the opportunity to see it.”
– Terry Roy, Outdoor Coordinator, BAWT FLT Alumni
Corporate Sponsors
In Kind Sponsors
Community Partners
Outdoor Educators Institute
OEI is one of our flagship yearly programs, through which we support young adults interested in pursuing a career in outdoor education, facilitation, and leadership through an immersive training program through once-a-week evening meetings and weekends over a three-month period.
OEI trainees will learn and practice a variety of outdoor skills necessary to becoming a culturally relevant outdoor leader. OEI also provides opportunities for outdoor employment, internships, and volunteering, as well as supports participants in building outdoor programming for their communities
Yoots
Yoots’ mission is to eliminate transportation as a barrier to equity for low income and under-represented youth. Our work lessens the logistical and financial burden on our youth serving partners, freeing up resources to focus on their critical programming.
Gaia Passages
Gaia Passages centers youth expressing their full selves in multicultural nature-based programs, empowering all to connect deeply with Earth wisdom within an intergenerational community of support and creative play.
Heirs to Our Oceans
At Heirs To Our Oceans we enVISION a world where all youth understand the world they are inheriting and are capable of creating a healthier, safer world for themselves and future generations.
Heirs To Our Oceans is for youth by youth in all of our actions to achieve our MISSION of inspiring the next generation of leaders connecting them in purpose, educating them on environmental and humanitarian global challenges, supporting them in processing and realizing solutions, and cultivating necessary skills to make real-world change and to adapt to the world they are inheriting.
