Outdoor Mentors & Savage Arms: The Importance Of Giving Back
The outdoors carries with it a tremendous number of opportunities for all those willing and able to pursue them. It is a fact, that the continued pursuit of outdoor recreation is what sustains the continued existence of the places and animals we love. However, there are many people today who have a real longing to participate in the challenge, comradery, and character building that the outdoors has to offer, but no one to teach them how. Many organizations across the country are seeking to remedy this. One such organization, Pass It On - Outdoor Mentors is on a mission to introduce and educate the next generation of young outdoorsmen and women.
THE DECLINE OF HUNTERS
Most outdoorsmen and women recognize that there is a simple correlation between the amount of participation in these activities and the relative health and protection of the game and places we love. However, there has been a steady decline in the number of participants in outdoor sports, such as fishing and hunting. Pass It On - Outdoor Mentors Vice President Brittany French cites a statistic from a 2016 US Fish and Wildlife survey that fewer than five percent of youth sixteen years of age and older hunt. This number is half of what it was fifty years ago.
“Through outdoor mentorship, we are coordinating hunting and fishing events for youth so they will have new and continued opportunities to learn from the best and build confidence,” said French.
RECRUITMENT, RETENTION, AND REACTIVATION
Pass It On - Outdoor Mentors, and other similar organizations have sought to stop the decline of participation in the outdoors through recruiting new hunters to the field, retaining their participation, and through reactivating those who have fallen away from the outdoors. The Council to Advance Hunting and the Shooting Sports has dubbed this the R3 initiative.
To Pass It On - Outdoor Mentors and their mission, a focus on R3 is pivotal to their success. They seek not just to expose new groups of people to the outdoors, but to keep them coming back.
"Pass It On – Outdoor Mentors has been involved with the R3 since it was R2," said Mike Christensen, President of Pass It On - Outdoor Mentors. "We have been a part of the Council to Advance Hunting and Shooting Sports Implementation Working Group and Brittany is now a member of their TAG (The Assessment Group) effort, looking at what is and isn’t working in the R3 world. We feel it is imperative that we be involved in R3 as much as possible to keep abreast of how our program is doing and where we can improve."
Raegan Pirtle who shot her first buck through the programs and services that Pass It On - Outdoor Mentors offers. Even though Raegan belonged to a family that hunted, Outdoor Mentors made possible the equipment, education, and setting for her harvest.
Pass It On - Outdoor Mentors’ goal is to facilitate positive outdoor experiences so young hunters like Raegan develop a lifelong passion for the outdoors.
PASSING IT ON TO THE NEXT GENERATION
Pass It On - Outdoor Mentors began in 2002 as a program under Kansas Big Brothers Big Sisters with a mission to recruit mentors who would spend time hunting and fishing with youth being served by BBBS to develop future generations of hunters and anglers, thereby positively impacting the conservation of natural resources and the lives of children. Many children across the nation have limited opportunities to learn how to hunt and fish and enjoy the outdoors. A hunting mentor can share with them the thrill that comes with calling a big tom turkey or having a big bass hit your lure.
Pass It On - Outdoor Mentors collects survey data from their participants to monitor if their efforts are impacting the students they serve. Brittany French reported to us that students expressed the top 3 barriers to getting involved in the outdoors are:
Access
Not having the confidence or skillset
Not having anyone to go with them
“We are addressing and breaking those barriers through our program and partnerships,” said French. She also points out that lack of interest is not among the top barriers reported by their students. French is encouraged by this because it means we are not being challenged to change their mindset about the outdoors – we are being challenged to share our time, knowledge, and passion for the outdoors with the next generation.
We are now facing a generation of children who are growing up with what some have called “nature-deficit disorder”. It is time we as sportsmen and women step up and make a difference in the lives of these children and Pass It On!
Brittany French explains that being a mentor means, “being able to share gifts, experiences, a listening ear, and passions we have for life with others. Being a mentor in the outdoor world is no different”.
"The outdoors played a huge role in shaping and influencing my life. Being able to share that passion with others is what I feel called to do. As a mentor, I challenge you to take your unbridled passion for the outdoors and inspire someone else. I think many of us get this idea in our head that mentoring means that we must arrange, facilitate, and fulfill a wildly successful hunt for our mentees. We all need to remember that success is when you invite someone along to go with you," she said.
Passionate outdoorsmen and women who want to get involved with Pass It On - Outdoor Mentors and mentoring youth hunters can apply to be a mentor and are matched with an appropriate mentee. The volunteer efforts of hunters, anglers, and landowners and their donations of time, equipment, access, and wisdom are all essential parts to making a difference in the lives of these kids.
"Our program is one that is putting boots on the ground, getting mentors and kids in the great outdoors, hunting and fishing," said Christensen.
All these elements came together for another young hunter named Cantanilla Curtis, who was able to harvest her first buck in Kansas. Cantanilla was not only provided with an introduction to hunting, but an experience she will never forget.
Building on 20 years of mentoring youth in the outdoors, Pass It On - Outdoor Mentors launched their Shooting Sports Outreach Program in 2019 to bridge the gap between target shooting and hunting. Since June of 2019, they expanded the Kansas effort to reach more schools and shooting athletes and implemented a program in Iowa, partnering with the IA DNR and the IA Scholastic Clays Target Program (SCTP).
“This program has scaled year after year since we started. We organized 59 events for shooting sports athletes in Kansas in our first season in 2019. In 2020, we grew that number to 127 events. In 2021, we organize 235 events across Kansas and Iowa. In 2022, our team of program coordinators in Kansas and Iowa planned 505 different events that served over 1,200 youth in the outdoors.” said Brittany French.
