Student Conservation Association Receives $2.5M from Kendeda Fund

WASHINGTON, DC, July 24, 2013 /3BL Media/ - The Student Conservation Association (SCA), the national leader in youth service and stewardship, has received a $2.5 million grant from the Kendeda Fund to advance the development of high school-aged youth as informed and active conservation leaders.

The Kendeda Fund support, to be allocated over four years, will strengthen SCA programs including national youth volunteer crews that protect and restore national parks and forests and community-based conservation crews for underserved urban teens.  In addition, the funding will enable SCA to enhance its curricula development and evaluation process.

“SCA’s formative, hands-on engagement of teenagers in an outdoor service-learning environment is in direct alignment with our focus on youth development and conservation,” states Diane Ives, Fund Advisor for The Kendeda Fund.  “Over the past several years, we’ve seen SCA consistently deliver on program objectives and outcomes.  We are looking forward to building a long-term partnership with the SCA team.”

For more than 50 years, SCA has partnered with the National Park Service, US Forest Service and other agencies to place SCA-supervised crews of high school students who build hiking trails, restore habitats, and learn about the environment and sustainability for up to a month at a time.  Building on this success, SCA launched urban conservation crews in over 20 municipalities nationwide to engage more city teens by providing green job opportunities in their home communities.

“With this generous support from The Kendeda Fund,” says SCA President Dale Penny, “SCA will enhance the content and consistency of our core curriculum system-wide.  In doing so, we will ensure that the next generation is armed with the ethic, skill and commitment to serve as conservation leaders and citizen stewards for the future.”

Penny says SCA members play a vital role at many of today’s natural resource management areas, whether national parks or municipal green spaces, as continued budget cuts and spending limits affect site maintenance and visitor services.  And as SCA’s government partners seek to meet their mandates to diversify their workforces and visitor ranks, they are increasingly looking to SCA to provide young people who are eager and willing to join their staffs and increase the outreach to those underrepresented in the nation’s parks.

“Ultimately, this  grant will help SCA improve and expand our service opportunities for young people from all walks of life, accelerating the growth of a more inclusive and accomplished community of young conservationists,” says Penny.

About The Kendeda Fund

The Kendeda Fund was established in the spring of 2006 as a charitable giving program initially dedicated to exploring how human beings can relate to one another and to this planet more mindfully and use resources equitably.  Through its sustainability grant making, the Fund is committed to examining two of the critical questions confronting humanity: how do we live within the limits of the natural world in ways that promote community, equity, and health and how do we redefine prosperity so that it leads to deeper contentment in our lives?  In 2012, the Fund added a second focus to its grantmaking – girls’ rights in the developing world. Its scope now also includes the question: how do we remove barriers and support building communities in which all girls systematically have the capabilities, choices, security and power to fully realize their human potential?

About the Student Conservation Association

The Student Conservation Association (SCA) is the only national organization that develops tomorrow's conservation leaders by providing high school and college students with service opportunities in all 50 states, from urban communities to national parks and forests.  Since 1957, SCA's hands-on practice of conservation service has helped to develop a new generation of conservation leaders, inspire lifelong stewardship and save the planet.  SCA is a nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with offices in Boise, ID, Charlestown, NH, Chicago, IL, Oakland, CA, Pittsburgh, PA, and Seattle, WA. For further information, visit www.thesca.org.