Haven't posted on this for a while.
Have taken a group of kids on 3 camping/hiking trips, all co-ed. All have gone extremely well, minus an incident with a kid from another town at a state park. Have a core group of kids really loving it. Have 6 kids who are going to go to Utah next summer with me, who we are busy raising funds for and gearing up.
Next summer we are planning a trip to the 24 mile canyon hike I have done 3 times before. 6 kids, and a total of 4 adults to drive and chaperone. Plan is to leave our town, drive to colorado and do pikes peak for a morning, before driving on to Utah to camp at the trailhead that night. Then, three days of hiking and backpacking. Ater that, we are stopping at Moab on the way home to spend a day at Arches. I got a guy on ebay to donate 6 army surplus but like new (never issued) ACU camelbacks, which along with my personal 5 means I can outfit the entire group almost.
I have, in my own collection, 2 ILBE's, and 2 ACU MOLLE II's. Another ebay seller sold me 4 ACU MOLLE II's at an extremely low price (150 shipped), which I really appriciated. The 4 are like new, so I am gearing the kids up with them as well. Going to try to get my schools ulumni to donate enough money to pay for most of the trip, as several of the kids do not have a ton of money. I am simply pumped about it. My wife has also graciously allowed me to do this, despite the fact we are expecting our first (a boy) in March. I'll only be gone 6 days, and will have the rest of the summer to relax with him, so I don't think it makes me a terrible dad or anything.
Also, took 9 of these students with parent permission on a 'non school sponsored' target shooting trip to a local, policed, state target range. 8/9 had never held a gun before, and all were a bit nervous. It went great, was really impressed by these kids. I know them all well, and knew they would be respectful and safe, but they still blew me away. The range officer complimented us, said our kids were better than a lot of adults. I had two teacher friends who are also conservative gun owners along, along with a father of one student who hunts. Kids shot my beretta m9, a ruger 10/22, a .22 revolver, my DPMS mk12, a 1944 M1 Garand, and my m91/30 (had the hollow steel target rds). Kids loved it. The girl we helped go to China last year came out for it, loved it too. These kids, many of them, went from just pure fear and curiousity to healthy respect and LOVE of shooting. Had a small Vietnamese girl who really liked my scoped mk12.....
Had a great time. Also had a ton of local guys off of a ks gun forum who donated ammo, mainly 30.06 for us to shoot. Had about 150 rds of 30 for the garand donated, along with 50 rds of 9mm, and 40 rds of .223. That helepd offset the cost for the kids, which was awesome.
This club has been an awesome experience. Will do it again next year, only better. Have learned a lot from it.
Including one safe pic, no faces. The blonde girl is the one that several on here donated money to to send to China last summer. The guy in the ILBE is one planning on going to Utah, so I had him carry an ILBE loaded down to feel a hike under weight. One of two fellow staff members is in the pic. This was a view from a cliff overlooking Elk City Lake in Ks.
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks