(soft country music) - [Narrator] Sara Holger envisioned a world where every kid would spend time outdoors every day.

The State Park naturalist turned that dream into Project Get Outdoors, an afterschool program she founded to connect Minnesota kids to nature.

- We focus on where our kids in the after school out-of-school hours.

So that might be libraries, YMCAs, boys and girls clubs, through city park and recs.

We do work with school districts through like community education and school age childcare.

A lot of these kids that we're working with, they're not used to being out in the woods, being outside.

So, making sure we're providing good experiences, happy experiences, creating good memories in these nature spaces, so that kids have a sense of like comfort outdoors, and they feel like safe and confident that they can go outside and play, and they don't have to be scared of things.

Back in 2005, just serendipitously, I was introduced to Richard Louv's book, "Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder," and I'm kind of a ADHD person, but this book was really speaking to me personally, and I was really like emotionally moved by that book.

So, it really brought out the trends, the statistics of how much time kids are spending indoors versus outdoors, what's happening to them physically and mentally, spiritually, how that ripples through our communities when we don't have a connection to nature.

And then I was trying to think, well, what can I do?

Me, this tiny little person, what can I do in my community to make a difference?

And I had been working seasonally for Minnesota State Parks as a naturalist, so I had like a connection to some of the state parks.

And then, I was also volunteering at a youth center in my community at the time.

And I thought, well let's bridge the two together, and do kind of a nature based outdoor, just exploring nature spaces in the afterschool setting.

And so, we founded this program in Plainview, Minnesota, it's in Wabasha County, small little farming community.

There's a pretty strong Latino population in the Plainview community.

It's a community with migrant workers that come and work at the canning factory, (tribal drums playing) work on the local dairy farms.

And so, working with the Plainview Migrant Council, Lakeside Foods, even local law enforcement, we were able to kind of tap into that community.

I kind of felt like a missionary almost 'cause we were literally going door to door, and just sharing information about this program, and it's gonna be free, (graphics fuzzing) and we'll come into the neighborhood, and pick kids up, and parents are welcome to come with.

And that's how we started.

Was very successful, we had great participation.

(people chattering distantly) - [Participant] Project Get Outdoors, experience, explore.

(people chattering distantly) - The news came out and covered some stories on it, and then other communities said, "Hey!

This is great.

How can we do this in Winona?

How can we do this in St. Charles?

How can we do this in Rochester?"

And so, within a year, I kinda said, "This looks like we maybe need to create some resources, and maybe look at becoming an organization."

(pleasant music) - [Narrator] With help from a variety of partners, Project Go became a nonprofit, and developed training materials and backpacks with items that organizations could use to run their own afterschool program.

- We've gotten funding two different times from LCCMR, which has been amazing.

The first time was to create more backpacks and resources that different groups could check out and utilize.

And the second time was to create a statewide training where we could take it to each region of Minnesota.

- [Narrator] At a recent training for Southeast Minnesota leaders, Sara revealed the contents of backpacks that can be used to inspire curiosity and creativity.

- It's all about having fun.

So like, the backpacks that we provide, it's not, I tell people it's not rocket science, it's basic stuff.

There's a ball, there's a rope, there's a ruler, there's balloons, there's chalk, there's all these bubbles, there's simple things that kids could find at home.

But let's be creative on how we can use those to explore outdoors.

(atmosphere humming) There is a ruler, I bring this up because you could do something where they gotta measure things.

Everybody has to find something that's certain size, or everybody collect leaves, measure your leaves, we're gonna sort 'em by side, there's ways you can bring in math that's subtle, it makes it more fun, but they don't even realize they're counting and using numbers.

There's a book that comes with the backpack specifically for like how to use the resources in the backpack, just ideas.

How to plan field trips (truck revving distantly) and things like that.

There's a cloud chart.

(bag shuffling) There's a popup.

This thing pops up as a little bug house, you can put insects in.

(bag shuffling) And then, there's a little mini first aid kit in there.

So, there's a mix of things.

And so, part of the training is kind of practicing some of these simple activities that you could do with the backpack.

You can observe that children love being outside, (soft pleasant music) but just to learn some of the science behind that, and some of the medical science was really interesting.

(soft upbeat music) In the process of play, we're learning all these amazing skills.

For me, it was fort building.

We built forts everywhere.

And think of like the engineering and like design.

Like, each fort, we learn something from.

Team building, problem solving, just innovation, creativity, all these things that come from it.

And it doesn't have to be jazzed up with "This is environmental education, this is the lesson plan we're using," it doesn't have to be that complicated, and that could scare some volunteers.

Keep it simple.

I've put out a few resources at the training we did today, one is the stick book.

It has all these ideas of what you can do with sticks, right?

In the National Toy Hall of Fame, the number one rated toy is a stick.

Because you can turn that stick into like thousands of different things outdoors.

- [Narrator] In addition to backpacks for program leaders, Project Go has assembled activity trunks that can be checked out.

- There's like six or seven different activity kits.

Each region has a set of those.

We have birding kits that have binoculars, and they have like little stuffed birds that we hide out around the park or wherever the green space is.

And they go and just look for birds.

There's some different activity ideas they can do with that, but the idea is let's just get outside and explore, and focus on birds!

There's an insect one similar, it's got different insect nets, bug houses, magnifying glasses, there's books, each of these has books on birds, on insects.

There's a fishing one.

So, we have the fishing poles that they can use, but then, there's also fish printing, where they're rubber fish and you can paint them and make a print, and it's different fish in Minnesota.

So, and then the fish in Minnesota posters.

There's geocaching with the GPS units.

There's intro to camping where they learn how to set up a tent.

And then, there's like dry sack with all kinds of just, if you're camping, these are things you might use.

And reiterating, like, you can do this in your own backyard too, like you could camp in your backyard.

You don't have to go to like a national park to experience camping.

But then, having a conversation about what are other places where you could camp?

And in that, we would actually do like a mapping activity where we would create like a community green space map and look at like different types of spaces we have, and what you can use 'em for.

Fun is really important.

I mean, we're talking about mental health and physical health, and earnest stuff about the planet, but fun and joy are behind all of that, and that's really what she tries to convey.

(soft cheerful music) For a lot of kids, it really does change their lives in a really powerful kind of transforming way, so and nature's there, it's there for the rest of their lives.

We had a little guy, I think it was kindergarten when he started, one of the teachers that had him, she approached me one day after school, and she said, "Wow, this program's really making a difference.

'Cause this little guy was very timid, shy in the classroom, like usually didn't engage in like the classroom conversation."

And she said, "After being in Project O for a short time, he was raising his hand, and he was connecting like what they were learning in the classroom to what we had done in Project O."

But that was how it made sense to him.

He'd say, "Well, you know what, Project O, you know we had this hike we did, and we went to this cemetery, and there was this tree," and he was connecting it totally to what they had been learning in class.

And he wasn't afraid.

Like, he was super excited to share.

And so, she said it was a total transformation in this kid.

He was more confident, and he was really understanding the concepts 'cause he could relate it to something he had done.

- [Narrator] Since 2005, Project Go has served more than 50,000 children at a variety of out-of-school programs across Minnesota.

- At the training we had today, we had a representative from Hispanic Outreach of Goodhue County.

We had somebody from the Winona Library, we had somebody from the Artist Sanctuary in Red Wing, and somebody from the Frontenac State Parks Association.

So, interesting mix of organizations, right?

Basic thing with Project Go is just comfort being outside.

Once we're comfortable, then we can start to appreciate it, right?

And when we have appreciation, then we wanna take care of it.