Brendan Schauffler (Oxford County Wellness Collaborative, rear) presents a check to Bethel Town Manager Loretta Powers (left) and Bethel Recreation Board Chairman Bob Oickle (right).
AREA — Recreation Challenge Donates $3,750 to Local Youth Programs
Local community members rose to meet the Second Nature Adventure Challenge―to get active outdoors during school vacation week for some healthy fun and to generate $3,750 in cash donations to local youth-serving programs.
Two hundred and two people recorded outdoor activities, including winter hikes, walks, cross country ski trips, sledding, snowshoeing, fat bike rides, and more, between February 19–27. Many of these folks were outside with family, friends, and groups, meaning the total number of outdoor adventures was much higher than 200 – which was the original goal of the Challenge.
By Thursday, February 24, a total of 366 outdoor activities had been recorded. Meeting this goal meant that $1,000 checks would go to three youth-serving programs that were selected as beneficiaries of the Second Nature Adventure Challenge:
• Bethel Rec Department
• Chisholm Ski Club (Rumford)
• Oxford Hills Bill Koch Youth Ski League
As the Director of the Bethel Recreation Department, Mary Scanlon is excited about the support that Second Nature funding will provide to the town’s popular new ice rink. She shared, “The popularity and use of the rink in this, its first year, far exceeds our expectations. On any given day you will find adults, children, families, and friends skating and having fun together.
“The ice rink brings new skaters and experienced skaters outside for recreating. From young children putting on skates for the first time to experienced hockey players playing a pick-up game in the evening, the Bethel Community Ice Rink is getting many people outside that may have not done so otherwise.”
In light of the early success, event organizers set a “stretch goal” of 500 outdoor activities, offering an additional $750 in funding going to beneficiaries if the goal could be reached by February 27. The news was shared widely via social media and community members responded.
When the event ended, an incredible 842 outdoor activities had been recorded! All activities were recorded using a simple online survey, which took people an average of 90 seconds to complete. The survey collected basic information about where people got outside, when, how many people were with them, and how long they were out.
After crunching the numbers, it was revealed that people spent a remarkable total of 1,407 hours outside as part of the Second Nature Adventure Challenge!
Brendan Schauffler is the facilitator of the Oxford County Wellness Collaborative and program coordinator for the Challenge. “We’re incredibly grateful to local community members for their support of the Challenge and youth serving-programs. Previous participants in the Challenge gave us feedback about making the event easier to participate in, and the changes we made to simplify things resulted in record participation numbers.
“Our beneficiaries and Maine West partners offered up lots of family-friendly options for outdoor fun and did a great job at helping us spread the word about the Challenge,” Schauffler said.
The Second Nature Adventure Challenge is a project of Maine West (www.mainewest.org) ― a partnership of local and regional organizations working to position rural communities in northern Oxford County as viable and attractive places to live, work, do business, and raise families.
Over the past two years, more than 500 people have teamed up to complete over 1,000 outdoor trail activities and secure $15,500 in community reward funding for food pantries and local after-school programs in Western Maine.
Past program beneficiaries have included Destination Paris, Mahoosuc Kids Association, Western Foothills Kids Association, Agnes Gray Elementary School Food Pantry, Bethel Food Pantry, and Servant’s Heart Food Pantry in Peru.
Maine West works across the Oxford Hills, River Valley, and Bethel-Mahoosuc areas to provide network-based, collaborative programming in three focal areas: Active Communities, Broadband Access and Adoption, and Educational Attainment and Aspirations. To learn more about the Second Nature Adventure Challenge visit: https://secondnaturemaine.com/
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