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Thursday, March 28, 2024

National Park Service’s grant sends students to Alaska

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By Elly Colwell

Contributing Writer

Ten Wilmington high-school students are preparing for a three-week Alaskan wilderness adventure as part of a program that introduces outdoor excursions for students with financial needs.

Serving as ambassadors for the National Center for Outdoor and Adventure Education’s program Education Without Walls (EWW), the students will climb, hike and camp on glaciers in the remote mountains of Alaska at no personal cost over 21 days this July.

“Circumstances arise in all of our lives where we find ourselves in financial need,” said Zac Adair, cofounder of the center. The group uses outdoor adventure to help its students overcome challenges they face in daily life.

EWW specifically aims to encourage highly motivated students in academic and personal development. Each Alaska-bound teenager has participated in EWW excursions throughout his or her middle- and high-school years.

“I was always too scared to go out in the woods before this,” said Shaianne Bowman, a junior at New Hanover High School. “It’s helped me learn how to communicate, too. I’m an introvert but I’ve started to learn about how to talk about my problems.”

Over the course of her four years in the program, Bowman said she and her classmates have backpacked, rock-climbed, surfed, kayaked and camped together. They have learned about stewardship, interpersonal relationships and independence as they explored the wilderness and beaches of North Carolina.

NCOAE won a $25,000 grant from the National Park Service’s Challenge Cost Share Program that Adair said will help fund the trip. It did not cover the entire cost, however, so the students are learning about fundraising and will be responsible for raising a portion of their own travel expenses.

Adair said the grant is allowing the organization to continue its growth. Adair and his wife, Celine, founded the center in 2009. Both are lifelong adventurists and created the organization after Zac became almost completely blind in an automobile collision in 2003.

“I knew I wouldn’t be hired by anybody, so I figured I’d start my own company,” Adair said. “I probably could’ve gotten an administrative job, but I wanted to be outdoors.”

This Alaska trip will be the students’ longest and first out-of-state excursion with NCOAE. They will begin the trip by flying with three instructors to Anchorage, taking a bush flight closer to their destination, and backpacking across the mountainous and glacier-ridden Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve.

“I’m excited to see all the snow,” Bowman said, “and maybe even a grizzly bear.”

The park is snow-covered year-round. It is also the largest national park in the United States, totaling 13.2 million acres. Because of its size, Adair said the park is difficult to maintain.

“It’s probably one of the wildest places in the United States,” Adair said. “We want to help sustain it.”

Working with an archaeologist on-site, the students will learn about restoration as they repair bear fences and degraded structures at a historic mining site in the park.

EWW was the organization’s first program and has reached almost 800 students since its creation. The current students who are headed to Alaska voiced appreciation for the things they’ve learned, and some said they hope to come back as leaders for the program.

Some of the students are also applying to universities, asking for letters of recommendation from the NCOAE founders and spreading their knowledge of the outdoors.

“After we graduate, my friends and I are talking about going backpacking,” said Joaly Canseco, a senior at New Hanover High School. “Most of them have never done anything like this before, but they want to after hearing about what we’ve done.”

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