Support Youth in Nature and Transform Lives, One Person at a Time

Your Donation Helps Break the Barriers to the Outdoors

Like thousands of nonprofits, we use #GivingTuesday, the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, as our biggest fundraiser - a counter balance to the intense focus on consumerism seen in Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Our #GivingTuesday goal is to support our nature-based, youth mentoring programs in Yosemite and the Eastern Sierra with Atwater High School, Bishop Middle School Continuation Day class, Big Pine 6th grade class, Keith Bright Juvenile High, Long Beach High School, CASA from San Francisco and Merced.

We build and maintain nature connections with our youth through various activities like: hiking, climbing, camping, back packing, lake swimming and paddle boarding, stewardship work with the Yosemite National Park Service and gardening work with the Bishop Paiute Tribe. Additionally, through art and culturally relevant activities with C5 Studio in Bishop and Native Elders in the community we are bringing our youth together through conversations, journaling, reflections and storytelling about how to connect to the natural world around us and explore its depths.

The Sacred Rok model is all about meaningful and longterm relationships. We are seeking funding to support our ongoing relationships and outings with our youth. Our programs are free to all youth participants and the funding we seek would go directly to cover costs of running trips: volunteer stipends, insurance, transportation, food, park fees, gear/equipment, etc.

The outdoor experiences we facilitate have such a longstanding and deep impact on the youth. In their own words they have shared their feelings from some of our experiences:

"I never imagined it to be such an amazing experience but they proved me wrong."

"I loved the entire experience. We went to some very cool spots & hiked the waterfall when we first got into the park. I learned so much about nature!"

" My favorite part of the experience was swimming, as well as seeing a different side to nature that I don’t feel can be seen elsewhere.”

With your help, together we can further our commitment to supporting these youth build their nature connections and in finding their own unique voices. Please consider donating this holiday season.

With Respect,

Ron Kauk, Executive Director

Katie Lambert, Chief Operating Officer

The Future Is Now

We get asked a lot about results and we’ve always felt every experience has been worthy and life changing in some way, shape or form. We recently experienced something that continues to confirm this even more.

Shiwani first came when she was 13 years old from Merced on day trips with Sacred Rok, while in high school she joined the Merced Youth Council and continued to come on day trips and camping trips, she then went onto San Diego to college and would return to Sacred Rok during school breaks . She recently graduated college and returned to Yosemite with a group of her newfound college friends to join Sacred Rok on a weekend trip so they could have the experience, too.

This was a big honor for us to facilitate the ceremony of nature for these college graduates who are now in a diversified realm to contribute to society. In our days together we talked about the values of nature and the importance of continuing to have an open mind and create our own vision of how we would like to see the world - based on equality, respect and responsibility.

It’s a profound reality when they say the youth is our future.

We also held another day trip recently with our Sky Pilot Program which has been going on over the last three summers. Some of the participants have been involved with us since before the Sky Pilot Program, coming from the Big Pine middle school, with the majority of the youth in this group having attended at least 25 trips with Sacred Rok.

As the adults, we are having an incredible experience as we observe our youth - some who were at first mildly terrified to walk across a creek that was at most a foot deep to our recent trip to Tuolumne hiking up the front-side of Lembert Dome - their progress in very inspiring.

This proved once again that with adult supervision that provides care, patience and respect we can achieve something that didn’t seem possible.

As we’ve said before, us human beings are no different than nature - we need nurturing through water, sunlight, and rich soil to grow into a healthy contribution for the world.

Education Nature’s Way is absolutely one of the most important things for understanding what it means to be human in relationship to our mental, physical and spiritual health.

Sacred Rok, always respecting the intelligence of nature and understanding the need for balance.

-Ron Kauk

"Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves" - Chief Seattle

Building Our Story Through Relationships

We’re honored to have met the artist, Arsenio Baca, who has shown the intuitive connection with what we’ve been imagining for a while for two new t-shirts and a hat. This came about in a serendipitous timing and has made it even that much more natural to work together

It was always our intention to bring more light to the word Sacred. So, we are excited to share this with you in a little exchange for donations that keep our kids on the trail and our community building.

FRONT of Respect Nature Tee

BACK of Respect Nature Tee

Single T-shirt $100 donation

Water Bottle - $100 donation

Hat - $50 donation

Reflections

The long days of summer gave way to a new school year and a continuation of our relationships in the public education system with our youth-focused, nature-centered outings. Our school programs work on wholistic health - providing the opportunity for mental, physical, and spiritual experiences through time spent exploring and learning outside - in nature.

- We learned again that the illusion of human separation from nature has caused us a lot of trouble in the world.

-We learned that the opportunity to explore in nature is a way to true freedom to discover your authentic self.

-We learned that providing experiences where youth can trust and test their physical abilities is important.

-We learned that time to look at a star filled night sky can open our minds to imagine anything is possible.

Our ability as human beings to use our imagination is one of our most powerful gifts, given as a birthright you might say. It’s a truly natural wonder to wonder what’s possible; to use our imagination with an open mind and recognize the phenomenal story we are a part of.

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Fall Trip Highlights

Merced My City Mentoring – we wrapped up a 3 year Prop 64 grant partnership with 6 different cohorts through Merced Parks and Rec.

Palisade Glacier High School - 18 classes of Farm to School programming with horticulture, soil science, culinary and nutrition that culminated in a harvest lunch of food grown and prepared by the youth.

Keith Bright High, Juvenile Hall - monthly outings for physical and mental wellness exploring and gardening

Big Pine 6th Grade Class – monthly outings through the school year within the Eastern Sierra with Yosemite camping trips that promote courage, adventure and support positive character development

Jill Kinmont Boothe School - bi-monthly cultural arts, nature, climbing, and hiking outings

Atwater High School - monthly Nature Class outings for mental, physical and spiritual health

Bishop Union High School Outdoor Club - quarterly outings for physical and mental wellness through developing climbing and other outdoor abilities 

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The long shadows of the fall season promote a time for reflection and appreciation for all the experiences of the last year. These experiences give us knowledge to continue to follow the wisdom of nature.

Education Nature’s Way is based on this sense of wonder and consideration that can harmonize us with the natural world. Our collective future will depend on remembering what it means to be human in relation to all life, according to the natural laws that truly govern all life on earth.

Sacred Rok is committed to the  intelligence of nature.

Ron Kauk, ED & Katie Lambert, COO

To continue to support our youth, please consider donating to our Giving Tuesday Campaign