Kahtoola announced the winners of its 2023 Summer grant allocations: Elevate Nepal, Grand Canyon Youth, Humanitarian Efforts Reaching Out (HERO), Wilderness Volunteers and Young Masterminds Initiative.
Three times a year, Kahtoola’s philanthropy program donates at least one percent of annual sales to nonprofits dedicated to preserving indigenous cultures, promoting environmental responsibility and/or efforts to support the outdoor community.
The 2023 Summer grant recipients include:
- Elevate Nepal’s Ananda Jyoti Agricultural School Project founded in 2018. The Nepalese school works with village elders to share survival knowledge related to living in the Himalayan hills. This year, the school is conducting experiments on sustainable food production in the region with a focus on the impact of climate change on crops, organic biopesticides and soil health. Grant funds will help the school’s collaboration with village elders to expand these eco-friendly agricultural practices to nearby villages.
- Grand Canyon Youth’s Indigenous Youth Rafting Expeditions launched in 2021 to partner cultural knowledge holders with tribal youth participants for a first-of-its-kind all-indigenous youth rafting expedition in the Grand Canyon. With five expeditions scheduled in 2023, grant funds will be used to support the program’s goal to provide access to the outdoors to underrepresented populations, particularly indigenous youth from the Southwest.
- Humanitarian Efforts Reaching Out (HERO) Philim Village Project in the Gorkha District of Nepal provides medical clinics and Hepatitis B vaccinations in mountain villages. In 2023, clinics will focus on women’s and maternal health to address the high maternal death rate in the region. Medical resources as well as an education program will be established for frontline nurses and midwives in this remote area to reduce and potentially eliminate unnecessary deaths.
- Wilderness Volunteers Oak Creek Canyon Watershed Restoration Project is headquartered in Sedona, Ariz. The watershed project’s goal is to restore and enhance areas along Oak Creek Canyon which sees over 2 million visitors each year. The project will address water contamination and promote ecosystem recovery from the over 400 unsanctioned and illegal social trails that are creating erosion on the landscape.
- Young Masterminds Initiative Camping to Connect (C2C) Project is an experiential mentorship program that uses outdoor recreation and nature immersion to address the diverse issues faced by young men of color in America’s cities from mental health to healthy masculinity. Starting in New York, New Jersey, and Philadelphia, the program has recently expanded to Denver.
Nonprofits interested in applying for Kahtoola’s 2023 Fall/Winter grant cycle can visit Kahtoola.com. (November 30 deadline).
