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Mission
Welcome to Washington, D.C. Inner City Outings (“DC ICO”)!
 DC ICO is an outreach program of the Sierra Club, provides wilderness adventures for low-income youth of diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds who might otherwise not have them. DC ICO promotes personal development by linking cultures, fostering respect of self and for others, and providing leadership skills. DC ICO promotes appreciation and protection of our local and global environments.
Certified Outing Leaders, all of whom are volunteers and are trained in recreational, outdoor, safety skills, and environmental education, lead our outings. Outing Volunteers, who assist the Outing Leaders, typically are members of the Sierra Club or Greater DC Cares, but need not be. Each of our volunteer teams contains of a mix of environmental enthusiasts, volunteers experienced with at-risk youth, and first-time volunteers.
You can get more information about how to get involved by contacting Chrissy Prosperi, our New Volunteer Coordinator, at the email address below.
Each DC ICO outing group (at this time, there are three) tries to makes one outing per month and we try to schedule our outings on different weekend days to provide the greatest number of volunteer opportunities. Our current outing groups run primarily day trips with children between the ages of 6 and 12. More information on these groups can be found by clicking on the links on the right side of this page. Activities are tailored to the interests of each outing group and typically include hiking, canoeing, swimming, camping, or other environmental education activities.
Most of our activities do not require any financial contribution from volunteers (are always are free for our youth participants). When an activity involves an entrance fee that we cannot get waived, we sometimes do ask volunteers to pay for themselves and to consider sponsoring one or more children. If that is not possible, DC ICO will pay for everyone. We do not want money to be a barrier to participation for anyone. In addition, some of our outing 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 encourage Outing Volunteers to begin working toward certification as an Outing Leader. Our certified Outing Leaders join an outing group-specific team to help organize the outings for that group. Many of our Outing Leaders also take a role in the administration of DC ICO, including assisting with environmental education planning, fundraising, or volunteer development efforts, etc.
We hope you will consider volunteering your time to DC ICO to help us continue to enrich the lives of youth in Washington, D.C. Thank you for your support!
Drew Foley & Kris Unger
DC ICO Chairs
Note: If you are interested in outings for adults, please visit the Sierra Club’s Metropolitan Washington Regional Outings Program website: http://www.mwrop.org.
For more information, visit the
http://ico.sierraclub.org/dc web site.
Contact
For more information, contact:
Chrissy Prosperi
Washington,
DC
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Program Areas
Washington, D.C. Inner City Outings programs include the following areas:
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Columbia Heights.
DC ICO is partnering with DC Cares to start an outings program in Columbia Heights.
Children's Program.
Take children, ages 6-12, out of their urban settings on environmental outings.
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Highland Addition Outings.
Take at-risk children from the Highland low-income housing project in Annacostia on outings.
(Highland Addition)
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Wheeler Creek.
Take children 6-12 from Wheeler Creek housing development in Anacostia on outings
(Wheeler Creek)
(Children 6-12 years old, Environmental Education, Homelessness)
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Community of Hope Outings.
Take children from the Girard Street apartments on outings
(Community of Hope)
Teen Program.
Take teenagers, ages 13-19, on environmental outings.
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Accessible Wilderness Project.
Take disabled teenagers on overnight outings
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Environmental Education.
Bring EE to our outings
Fundraising.
Help us raise funds to support our work with at-risk children.
Events
View listing of current Washington, D.C. Inner City Outings events.
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