About

Outdoor Outreach is a San Diego-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in 1999 to connect youth to the transformative power of the outdoors. Since 1999, Outdoor Outreach has served more than 8,000 young people through our four core youth development programs: Partner, Adventure Club, Military, and the Leadership Program. The majority of youth we serve live in inner-city communities facing among the county’s highest rates of poverty, gang membership, high school drop-outs, and juvenile referrals to probation. Most of these young people have little experience with outdoor recreation, and minimal knowledge of the region's public parks, trails and beaches. In partnership with three Title I high schools and more than 25 like-minded community partners, Outdoor Outreach’s Partner, Adventure Club, and Military programs open the outdoors to more than 1,200 individual youth each year to learn, lead, and grow. Through Outdoor Outreach’s Leadership program (LEAD), the organization provides employment training and opportunities to a cohort of rising leaders from our other programs, helping inspire the next generation of responsible outdoor educators, concerned outdoor enthusiasts, and community leaders. Together with our partners, Outdoor Outreach uses the outdoors to inspire underserved youth to see possibility and opportunity in their lives, and realize the positive attitude and behavioral changes that help them become happy, healthy, successful adults.