We've written about the No Child Left Inside grant program in posts like Aitkin Co Land Commish: local conservation center would benefit from Becker-Finn bill and Strib readers must go 10 paragraphs down to learn whose "good idea" No Child Left Indoors is.
The program is part of Roseville DFLer Jamie Becker-Finn's forward thinking about conservation and outdoor policy.
Now the program is on its way for renewed funding.
At Session Daily, Nate Gotlieb reports in No Child Left Inside grant program could get $2 million:
A popular, two-year-old grant program that has funded dozens of environmental and natural resources education and recreation activities for youth could get additional funding.
Sponsored by Rep. Jamie Becker-Finn (DFL-Roseville), HF76 would allocate $2 million in fiscal year 2022 from the General Fund for the Department of Natural Resources-run No Child Left Inside program.
Funds would be allocated through a newly created outdoor engagement account.
The bill, as amended, was laid over Thursday by the House Environment and Natural Resources Finance and Policy Committee for possible omnibus bill inclusion. It has no Senate companion.
No Child Left Inside is aimed at connecting more youth to the outdoors, especially kids who otherwise wouldn't have access to outdoor activities, Becker-Finn said.
After the program's establishment in 2019, the DNR solicited grant applications in two phases, asking for requests under $5,000 in October 2019 and requests between $5,000 and $49,999 that winter.
Requests in the first phase were awarded on a first-come, first-served basis.
Between the two phases, the DNR received about 620 grant applications requesting over $6.2 million, Outreach Coordinator Jeff Ledermann said. Two-thirds of requests were submitted during the first phase, including 200 within six minutes of the application being open online.
"We were blown away by the response," Ledermann said.
In total, the DNR awarded 93 No Child Left Inside grants. They went to everything from a bass fishing club at a Hmong charter school to a Dakota youth outdoors program.
Ledermann said grants for underserved audiences were prioritized in phase one, with 39.7% of participants in funded programs qualifying for free or reduced-price school lunch.
Environmental groups and advocates of outdoor education are encouraging the Legislature to fund the program again next year and said it's smart to help children develop a passion for the outdoors.
University of Minnesota graduate student Hannah Geressu suggested setting aside funds for Native American tribes.
Here's the Minnesota House Information Services YouTube of the discussion of the bill:
While the popular program would seem a no-brainer, Becker-Finn did meet with resistance in committee, as we reported in Dominant culture: Lueck gets in a huff about proposal aimed at getting kids into the outdoors:
The day after the [House Environment and Natural Resources Policy] committee meeting, Lueck said in an interview that he took offense on behalf of the people at his local outdoors outfit, the Long Lake Conservation Center near Palisade. He perceived that Becker-Finn attacked the ability of those organizations to conduct diverse outreach.
As we learned in Aitkin Co Land Commish: local conservation center would benefit from Becker-Finn bill, the Long Lake Conservation Center was all in with the proposal:
Interestingly enough, Aitkin County Land Commissioner Rich Courtemanche showed up yesterday to support the bill at a special informational hearing at an informational hearing Friday in the Environment and Natural Resources Committee, which met at the Dodge Nature Center in West St. Paul, according to KARE 11's John Croman in New push to get for children outdoors:
Aitken [sic] County Land Commissioner Rich Courtemanche told the panel that many school districts have backed away from the multiple-day trips to environmental learning centers such as Long Lake Conservation Center in north central Minnesota.
He said Long Lake averaged 6,000 student visitors per year before the Great Recession, and now that's down to 3,500 per year even though the economy recovered.
"Since 2010 budget shortfalls have eliminated nearly all funding for environmental education. Environmental learning centers throughout the state are feeling the pinch," Courtemanche explained.
He said if the trend continues there's a risk the next generation won't value the outdoors or understand the relationship between nature and people. . . .
Watch the testimony in the embedded YouTube. The program is a great one for Minnesota's kids.
Photo: Children hiking. Via Duluth News Tribune.
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