Building Community and Confidence in the BWCA!

We were thrilled to spend another summer hosting student trips to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) in northern Minnesota. Each summer since 1999, Project SUCCESS has brought middle school students on seven day adventures in the BWCA, helping them to connect with each other, develop positive behaviors and skills, and build confidence and respect for the wilderness and a simple way of life. In June of this year, we brought 125 students from 12 Minneapolis and Saint Paul public schools to the wilderness over the course of three weeks.

As a part of their BWCA Adventure, students paddle and portage canoes, set up and break down camp, cook their own food and clean up without impacting the natural environment.

This program complements our monthly in-class workshops, allowing students to apply the skills they’ve learned in a hands-on environment, condensed into a weeklong summer experience. Students are invited to join the trip regardless of their experience level – whether they’re seasoned wilderness explorers or have never left the city limits. The BWCA adventure is a fantastic way to help kids set incremental goals and achieve them. They support each other throughout the experience, giving them a sense of accomplishment, a reverence for the environment and aligning with our commitment to helping kids “dream, plan, succeed.”

We celebrated many new milestones for the program this year, including the creation of a new training orientation program for all staff and leaders, and hosting our first Deaf/Hard of Hearing student attendee with the support of Project Success staff and two ASL translators.

Project Success provided scholarships to students who did not have the means to pay the full participation fee. The scholarships were funded, in part, by the generosity of the The Minneapolis Foundation’s 612-Youth Engagement Project fund, The Marbrook Foundation, the James B. Linsmayer Foundation, and individual donors to Project Success.

We are pleased to report that we had a tremendously positive response in our post-trip feedback, with 100 percent of student survey responders having said they would “absolutely” return to the Boundary Waters again with Project Success. Students and parents agreed that the trip helped the middle schoolers build confidence, resilience and problem-solving skills.

“I am so grateful to have my child in Project Success,” said one BWCA 2015 parent. “Project Success has taught my child well, and she now has the confidence in herself to do just about anything life throws her way.”

We are looking forward to our 2016 trips!

More information about our BWCA program and additional photos can be found on our BWCA adventures page.