Alvaro Juarez
Christine Kler
One of The Mountaineers core values is to empower our community to safely enjoy the transformative power of the outdoors. Creating the next generation of outdoor enthusiasts starts with our youth, and we’ve recently been reimagining how we engage with our youngest members at our Seattle Branch.
At the center of this transformation is the Seattle Youth Outreach Committee (SYOC), a dynamic group of parents, volunteers, and staff who are redefining youth outdoor education programming. This transformation is not just about adjusting trip planning or outdoor curriculum, but building a community of outdoor enthusiasts and environmental stewards who take ownership of their adventures.
MAC students backpacking in Squamish. Photo by Mountaineers staff.
What is the Seattle Youth Outreach Committee?
The Seattle Youth Outreach Committee initially began as a website function that enabled youth leaders to build activities and trips. The SYOC was not member-driven like most other committees and lacked a centralized sense of community engagement.
In the spring of 2023, Seattle Youth Clubs manager, Alvaro Juarez, mobilized parents, volunteers, and staff to harness the potential of the committee, shifting SYOC from a website support function to an in-person, collaborative community. The first committee meeting attempted to identify how to create an active SYOC and brainstorm program successes and areas of opportunity to maintain and improve high-quality programming for students.
This first Seattle Youth Outreach Committee meeting was full of passionate staff, parents, and volunteers. Much like a parent-teacher conference, this meeting was an opportunity to facilitate communication between staff and parents about their students' progress, skills, and overall well-being adventuring with The Mountaineers. In other words, how are students doing in their programs? And are there unidentified areas of opportunity?
Seattle Youth Outreach Committee meetings now happen bi-annually and have proven to provide visibility into the inner workings of youth programs, foster a collaborative space to share feedback, and explore additional ways to get involved. During these meetings, parents and volunteers are encouraged to share highlights, ideas, and goals for future programming. Staff also share organizational and programming updates, and together, the group identifies pinch points and collaborates on areas of improvement.
Junior MAC students hiking at Navaho Peak. Photo by Mountaineers staff.
Amplifying impact through breadth of member expertise
The intention of the Seattle Youth Outreach Committee today is to pull from the vast and varied experiences of our members and provide them with a platform to help shape the future of youth programming. You don’t have to be a trip leader to have an impact on the way our programs engage youth in the outdoors. Many parents who don’t participate in trip planning or instruction enjoy SYOC meetings because they find joy in supporting efforts to improve the excellence of our programs. This type of support – problem solving how to enhance youth experiences in the outdoors – is crucial to the success of Mountaineers Youth Programs.
Drawing upon a community of volunteers with myriad experiences and expertise allows us to holistically meet the diverse needs of our youngest members. This collaboration encourages innovation and effective problem solving, and strengthens our network’s capacity to empower young individuals to thrive. The Seattle Youth Outreach Committee has already made great strides in creating a more robust curriculum by incorporating the input of members, adults, and youth alike. In the most recent SYOC meeting, the Clubs team shared ideas to enhance the current structure of Clubs and proposed new ways to improve the Youth Club experience for everyone. We also discussed opportunities for partnership with Club parents and the Seattle Sea Kayaking Committee that would enable us to develop a youth-specific sea kayaking curriculum.
Thanks to the Seattle Youth Outreach Committee, our Mountaineers Adventure Club (MAC) has been able to update their youth leadership and voting process to encourage more youth engagement, parents have been able to voice their interest in adult skill nights, and leaders with medical experience have been able to start teaching Wilderness First Aid to other adult volunteers (which our youth have expressed interest in learning as well!). One major development of the SYOC has been implementing a process to award MAC students with the Basic Alpine Climbing course badge upon graduation. This update acknowledges students’ skills learned over years of Clubs involvement and enables youth to more easily join adult programming.
SYOC members, Ken and David, chatting about trad gear placement during a Youth Club parents climbing trip. Photo by Jeff Kisch.
How to get involved
Staff, parents, volunteers, and youth themselves are all an integral part of our programming. Thanks to generous help from volunteers and members, our programs continue to expand. For example, youth who volunteer with our summer day camp – either belaying at program centers or assisting instructors as Counselors in Training – enable us to grow the number of campers we serve. In addition, we recently overhauled our climbing curriculum to make it easier for volunteers to support our programs, an effort that was spearheaded by a volunteer. This is the goal of the Seattle Youth Outreach Committee: to provide a space where families and members can learn and lean into opportunities to make youth programs a better experience for everyone.
There are many ways to get involved in youth programming. Join us at our Seattle Youth Outreach Committee meetings or reach out to a member of our Youth Team to learn more about volunteer opportunities. We are often looking for volunteers to belay or teach outdoor skills.
This article originally appeared in our fall 2024 issue of Mountaineer magazine. To view the original article in magazine form and read more stories from our publication, visit our magazine archive.
