Brendan Schauffler (center, Oxford County Wellness Collaborative), presents a check to the Bethel Rec Department to support their outdoor recreation programs for youth.
Recreation Challenge Donates $3,750 to Youth Programs
In Western Maine, community members responded so strongly to the winter Second Nature Adventure Challenge from Maine West that organizers raised the goal and increased the potential rewards for programs that serve local youth.
When the challenge ended, 842 participants had spent 1,407 hours outdoors on winter adventures, including hikes, walks, cross country ski trips, sledding, snowshoeing, and fat-bike rides – easily surpassing the increased goal of 500 participants. Their healthy outdoor fun earned $3,750 in cash donations from the Maine West initiative to programs for local youth.
“We’re incredibly grateful to local community members for their support of the Challenge and youth serving-programs,” said Brendan Schauffler, facilitator of the Oxford County Wellness Collaborative and program coordinator for the Challenge. “Previous participants asked us to make it easier to participate, and the changes we made resulted in record participation. Our beneficiaries and Maine West partners offered up lots of family-friendly options for outdoor fun and did a great job at helping us spread the word about the Challenge,” Schauffler said.
The program’s success resulted in $1,250 donations to each of the three youth-serving programs selected as beneficiaries of the winter Challenge: Bethel Recreation Department, Chisholm Ski Club (Rumford), and Oxford Hills Bill Koch Youth Ski League.
“Funding from the Second Nature Adventure Challenge will help us continue to connect River Valley youth to skiing and snowboarding opportunities,” said Roger Arsenault, a board member of the Chisholm Ski Club. This group has been an institution in the River Valley for decades, with an army of loyal and longtime volunteers helping to build a love for skiing in generations of local youth.
The Second Nature Adventure Challenge is a project of Maine West (www.mainewest.org)―a partnership of local and regional organizations working to position rural communities in northern Oxford County as viable and attractive places to live, work, do business, and raise families.
Over the past two years, more than 500 people have completed more than 1,000 outdoor trail activities and secured $15,500 in community reward funding for food pantries and local after school programs in Western Maine. Past program beneficiaries have included Destination Paris, Mahoosuc Kids Association, Western Foothills Kids Association, Agnes Gray Elementary School Food Pantry, Bethel Food Pantry, and Servant’s Heart Food Pantry in Peru.
The Northern Forest Center coordinates the Maine West initiative, which works across the Oxford Hills, River Valley, and Bethel-Mahoosuc areas of western Maine to provide network-based, collaborative programming in three focal areas: Active Communities, Broadband Access and Adoption, and Educational Attainment and Aspirations.
