A group of Los Angeles teenagers stepped outside a concrete jungle and into the wilderness of the Northern Olympic Peninsula this week.
The nine-day adventure is part of an inner-city youth mentoring program through Outward Bound Adventures, a nonprofit organization in Pasadena, Calif.
Outward Bound provides free outdoor activities and science education for youths.
The 11 students who toured the Peninsula this week are being molded into future counselors for the program.
All the students attend EcoAcademy, an alternative high school in South Los Angeles that emphasizes environmental studies.
The school was developed through Los Angeles Conservation Corps, a nonprofit that helps at-risk youth in areas of Los Angeles plagued by poverty and high rates of kids dropping out of school.
“It’s a struggle to even graduate high school,” for most of the kids, said Frank Thomas, one of Outward Bound’s trip leaders advising the students this week.
“Part of our objective is to show them there’s a world beyond high school,” Thomas said.
Two of the students, Irma Aburto, 17, and Art Cruz, 18, just graduated from EcoAcademy.
“I want to be a role model,” Aburto said.
“In L.A., [kids] don’t know we have all this,” she said about the wilderness and opportunities outside the city.
“All they think there is, is gang violence.”
Cruz said the Outward Bound program has given him a new level of confidence in his abilities to try new things, and to meet new people.
Outward Bound’s visit to the Peninsula is Cruz’s second extended outdoor adventure program; the first was a trip to Sequoia National Park in California.
