Today, The North Face announces the recipients of the 2022 Explore Fund grant in Australia and New Zealand.
In its first year, the Explore Fund aims to drive opportunities in the outdoors by funding community organisations around two themes: creating a community of new explorers and protecting the environment.
The Explore Fund Council has awarded grants to three groups – First Hike Project Inc. (Australia), Trailblazers Charitable Trust (New Zealand), and For Wild Places (Australia).
First Hike Project Inc. is a not-for-profit organisation operating out of Perth, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra. The organisation, run by volunteers, takes young people from refugee backgrounds on all-expenses-paid and all-equipment-provided hiking and camping experiences in the Australian bush. The aim is to help newly arrived youth from refugee backgrounds feel more at home in Australia once they step outside the suburbs and discover nature, and to help them overcome feelings of marginalisation and alienation. Sounds like a great idea and maybe one that can be extended to snow trips.
“Hiking is a new experience for these young people, and thanks to The North Face, participants will now go on to develop greater resilience in navigating their new home and lives, expanding their networks, and taking up new new opportunities.”
- Neil McCulloch, Founder of First Hike Project Inc.
Trailblazers is an evidence-based youth development program providing rangatahi (young people) with equitable access to physical activity whilst using trail running as a catalyst to transform lives. The objective of Trailblazers’ projects is to provide an effective sport-based intervention and support for children impacted by trauma, stress, disabilities, and mental health challenges. Trailblazers combines nature with personal challenges, social interaction and mentoring in a therapeutic and intentional way to help develop the whole child.
“We are excited that our programme, with the support of The North Face Explore fund, can help impact many more young lives – removing barriers, connecting them with nature, helping them achieve and believe together through the positive experience of trail running.”
- Jo Ryder, Founder of Trailblazers Charitable Trust
Founded by a small and driven group of trail runners, For Wild Places empowers passionate outdoor enthusiasts to embrace sports activism to celebrate and protect wild places. They set out to make trail running a meaningful expression of environmental activism, so that together, each of us can help our wild places survive and thrive. The long-term purpose is to create a world where wild places are collectively cherished and protected, using sports activism as the vehicle for linking human happiness and environmental well-being.
“The Explore Grant will allow FWP to host our inaugural Camp FWP, which will intertwine trail running and environmental advocacy, to empower and educate the next generation of sports activists. This grant will allow us to empower the activated and engaged trail running community to take bolder steps to protect the wild places we love to explore.”
- Hilary McAllister, Co-Founder & CEO of For Wild Places
The five-member Explore Fund Council worked together to identify the change-making organisations in the community, using the seven practices within the Explore Fund toolkit to guide their selection. These practices were developed to power an inclusive future for exploration and will be used to underpin a broader idea of what exploration looks like.
Council member Marian Krogh said the number of deserving applicants was overwhelming.
“It’s heartening to know there are so many groups out there working hard to create new communities of explorers and protecting the environment. Of course, the Explore Fund Council would like to support many organisations, but there were a few exceptional applications that stood out and we are very happy to be able to award them funding. The more people we can get outside, and therefore being environmental stewards, the better the outdoors will be for everyone.”
The three organisations will join the two founding partners, Affinity Initiative (an accessible and uplifting climbing space for women-of-colour) and ClimbingQTs (an LGBTQ+ social climbing community and advocacy group), as the inaugural recipients of the grant.
The North Face formalised the outdoor industry’s first grant making program focused on increasing outdoor participation in the U.S when it launched The Explore Fund in 2010. The program expanded to Canada in 2012, Europe in 2018 and the Asia-Pacific region in 2021, before making its way to Australia and New Zealand this year.
For more information or to apply for a grant visit www.thenorthface.com.au/explore-fund
One of our top contributors Shaun Mittwollen won a TNF Adventure Grant a couple of years back enabling him to produce some epic Tassie coverage for us like this –
