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Youth Opportunities David English remembers how he felt when he attended his first AMC Youth Opportunities Program (YOP) training in 2006. "I looked around and noticed that I was twice as old as everyone else in the room," recalls the 48-year-old father of four from Cambridge, Mass. "I felt a little out of place. But I thought, 'I can do this. I've done harder things than this.'" YOP, celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, provides youth workers, teachers, counselors, and other adults training and certification to lead their youth groups on outdoor trips. The goal is to make the outdoors and the environment accessible and meaningful to youth from all socioeconomic backgrounds. To become YOP members and receive the program's support services, adults such as English attend a four- or five-day training that covers the basics of first aid, orienteering, equipment use, and group management. More advanced training programs cover specialized topics such as winter travel, canoeing, and wilderness first aid. English attended the YOP training to augment his work with a program called Venturers, a Boy Scouts offshoot for male and female teens. He had recently begun leading trips through Venturers and was concerned about the high cost of the programs. Once he underwent YOP training, his groups could use YOP's equipment for free and get reduced lodging rates at AMC facilities, bringing the cost down significantly. Last summer, he took a group of 10 teens on a four-day backpacking and camping trip to Mount Cardigan; the group camped, stayed at AMC's Cardigan Lodge, and went to High Cabin. "They all had a blast," he reports. "I took my 16-year-old son along, kicking and screaming. I practically had to drag him out the door. But guess what? I've never seen him have so much fun in his life." Such resistance to the trip is something that English sees often among his youth group members as well as among his own four children. "A lot of kids from the city have a built-in preconception that when we head into the woods, we're going into the great beyond and they'll never make it back," he says. "They think they're venturing beyond civilization, especially when they find out we don't allow them to bring any electronics along. The trick is to get them there and then keep them busy. As soon as we get onto the trail, I explain to them how to read the blazes on the trees. Keep them busy enough, and the next thing they know they've summitted a 5,000-foot-high mountain."
Stefanie Brochu, the YOP director for AMC, has witnessed this same transformation herself. "I'll never forget the absolute astonishment on the face of a teenager from Lowell, Mass., when we arrived at Lonesome Lake Hut after several hours of hiking," she recalls. "He could not believe that in the middle of the wilderness there could be a building where we would find warm food and cozy bunks. When the hut came into view, the whole group cheered, and the look on his face was priceless. It reminded me how much youth benefit from stepping into new environments and experiencing new places." Not that it's always easy to get them there, but English, whose daytime job is managing a fleet for a bus company, has learned a lot about kids during his work as an excursion leader—as well as by raising his own children. "Kids are very resilient. They can bounce back from anything," he says. "On some trips, there are days when we struggle, but kids seem to have a way of regulating themselves."
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Worcester Family Outing. Photo by Ed Fanjoy.
