The Sierra Club Inner City Outings program (ICO) provides wilderness adventures for people who wouldn't otherwise have them, including low-income youth of diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds, hearing or visually impaired individuals, and the physically disabled. ICO promotes personal development by linking cultures, fostering respect of self and others and providing leadership skills.
ICO promotes appreciation and protection of our local and global environments through a process of spiritual growth and sharing. Volunteer leaders, trained in recreational, outdoor and safety skills as well as environmental education, lead our outings.
Volunteers are typically members of the Sierra Club or Greater DC Cares. There are no other prerequisites for volunteering. Each of our volunteer teams contains a mix of environmental enthusiasts, volunteers experienced with at-risk children, and first time volunteers.
Each ICO team usually holds one outing per month in conjunction with a local community service organization. We try to schedule our groups across different weekend days to provide the greatest number of volunteer opportunities.
Recent ICO teams in the DC area have partnered with residents from low-income housing neighborhoods; and elementary, junior high, and high schools. ICO has also partnered with special interest groups, including a girls-only junior high group, and a hearing-challenged group from Gallaudet.
Most of our current groups run primarily day trips with at-risk children between the ages of 6-12. More information on these groups can be found by clicking on the links to the right. For more information on our overnight outings with developmentally disabled teens, please see the Accessible Wilderness Project flyer.
Activities are tailored to the interests of each group and typically include hiking, canoeing, swimming, camping, and environmental education.
Most of our activities do not require financial contributions from volunteers. When an activity involves entrance fees that we cannot get waived, we do ask volunteers to pay for themselves and consider sponsoring one or more children. Additionally, many of our groups will ask volunteers to bring their own lunch, or bring something to contribute to a group lunch.
After participating on a few outings, we expect volunteers to begin working towards leader certification. Our certified leaders join a team of leaders for each agency to help organize the outings for that group. Our leaders also take a role in the Inner City Outings group, such as assisting with environmental education, fundraising, volunteer development, etc.
All potential leaders (and all volunteers) are welcome to review the ICO Outings Leader Training manual at http://clubhouse.sierraclub.org/outings/ico/ You can access the clubhouse with the username: clubhouse and the password: explore
The 36 page ICO Outings Leader Training - Basic (ICO OLT 101) may be found at http://clubhouse.sierraclub.org/outings/training/intro/olt101/ICO/index.asp
ICO is the Sierra Club's volunteer outreach program to at-risk youth.
If you are interested in the metro area's Sierra Club adult outings program (the Metropolitan Washington Regional Outings Program), please visit http://www.mwrop.org
