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July, 2007
CRX offers Caribou kids Xtreme taste of the Outdoors
The Caribou Parks and Recreation Department’s wildly successful Caribou Rec. Xtreme (CRX) outdoor adventure program is all about the numbers.
Well, really, CRX is all about kids learning and having fun in an outdoor setting, but it’s the numbers that quantify, justify, and signify the success and importance of the program with tee totaling tolerance.
Over 100 Caribou area youths in grades 6 through 9 participated in this summer’s slate of weeklong adventures, ranging from recreational kayaking and canoeing, to backpacking, to mountain biking. The programs are open to both boys and girls, and CRX also offers a girls-only week called WOW! (short for Wild Outdoor Women!) that combines all of the previously mentioned activities.
In the end, participants paddled over 130 miles on area lakes and rivers, hiked nearly 15 miles on local mountain trails, and pedaled more than 40 miles on some of the best all-terrain bike trails to be found anywhere. And that’s not counting kayaking (with specially-rigged boats), hiking, and biking in front of thousands of people in two local parades!
Impressed yet? Well, ponder this number: zero.
Zip, zilch, nada, nothing…that’s what it cost each of those 100 plus kids to rack up all those miles this summer. Now that’s impressive.
Technically, it costs each participant $10 to reserve a highly sought-after space in one of the programs (the kayaking programs, incidentally, sometimes have twice as many students sign up as the programs can facilitate). If a participant is then in attendance for 75% or more of a given week, the $10 is refunded in full. And most participants get their money back.
The reason that these programs can be offered to participants at no cost is a mutually beneficial partnership between the municipal recreation department and Caribou’s local hospital, Cary Medical Center.
More specifically, Cary’s Power of Prevention program provides part of the funding and resources to help deliver a healthy lifestyle message and positive role models to kids in the CRX program. The Power of Prevention is a part of the Healthy Maine Partnerships initiative that uses the state’s tobacco settlement funds to promote and support tobacco use prevention, increased physical activity, and healthy eating among Mainers.
CRX has been providing adventures since 1999, and the Power of Prevention came on board two years later. Since 2001, nearly 600 young outdoorspersons have been involved in the program.
For more information on CRX, please contact MWSC Community Development Director Mark Shea at 207-492-1444 or mark@mainewsc.org.
Thanks to Live 2 Learn coordinator MWSC Community Development Director Mark Shea for submitting the writeup and photos.
Is your organization or school getting kids in boats or on bikes or on the rock? Drop us a line! Email nick@noumbrella.com. It’s all about the kids.
Email nick [at] noumbrella [dot] com with your questions, comments and concerns.
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