134. The San Antonio Nonprofit Bringing Black Youth Back to Nature

Cory Ames [00:00:03]:
Welcome to Big City Small Town, the podcast about the people who make San Antonio go and grow. I'm Corey Ames. Today's guest is Alex Bailey, the visionary behind Black Outside, an organization working to reconnect black youth with the outdoors through summer camp, day hikes, and community centered experiences that reimagine what belonging in nature looks like. This isn't just about outdoor access. It's about identity, joy, happiness and generational healing. And it's happening right here in San Antonio. Let's get into it. Alex, thank you so much for being here with me.

Cory Ames [00:00:37]:
For folks who might not be familiar, would you mind introducing yourself and the work that you do?

Alex Bailey [00:00:42]:
Yeah. So my name is Alex Bailey, proud founder, executive director of Black Outside, Inc. I say founder, I've never really loved that term. Just because there's no way one person can help start a nonprofit, especially one that's rooted in community like ours. But yeah, serve as the executive director of Black Outside, Inc. Our mission is to reconnect blackheath to the outdoors. We do that through a variety of different programs, which we'll definitely probably dive into. But yeah, I love it.

Alex Bailey [00:01:06]:
I think I have one of the best jobs ever, so it's great.

Cory Ames [00:01:09]:
Awesome. Well, and first, I'd just love to start with how you got to San Antonio. What brought you here?

Alex Bailey [00:01:15]:
Yeah, so I was. I'm from Ohio. Go Buckeyes. So I'm originally from up north and I did a program, Teach for America. Some folks are probably pretty familiar with it. So I actually was brought to Texas through that program and actually started teaching on the border in the Rio Grande Valley, which is really eye opening experience for sure. Definitely culturally different than Ohio, for sure. I love my time down there just teaching on the border, learning so much more about specifically like Mexican culture, being immersed there.

Alex Bailey [00:01:44]:
Literally. Like when I say like on the border, I tell people, like, we could hit golf balls in the Mexico. Yeah, like that tire that close, obviously. Amazing breakfast tacos. Best in the state. So loved my time down there. Then taught in Austin for a bit and then ended up relocating to San Antonio for a position with Teach for America. And there's some stuff in between there that kind of led me back to the outdoors, but that's what drew me here, was education.

Alex Bailey [00:02:05]:
Actually, I used to be an education coach or leadership coach.

Cory Ames [00:02:07]:
And so why aren't you back in Ohio? Why have you decided to stick around in San Antonio?

Alex Bailey [00:02:11]:
The snow. I mean, multiple reasons. I love my home state of Ohio, but man, something about Texas that I love and it's just I really, truly call home. It is true. I do not miss the snow. I do not miss the winters. I'll visit snow. I'm good on living there all year.

Alex Bailey [00:02:26]:
But, yeah, it just. It really felt like this was the place for me to grow my roots. But I don't know. Even when I was young, I always had this yearning to go out West. And so before I moved to Texas, I had never even been to Texas before, outside of pit stop in the airport. So it was definitely a big risk for me being 21 years old and just packing up everything in my little Chevy Malibu and driving across the country. But I don't regret that decision at all. And I know this is the place where I'm supposed to be.

Alex Bailey [00:02:49]:
Yeah.

Cory Ames [00:02:49]:
And it seems like we. We have a lot of stuff in common there. I moved to Texas when I was 22. Likewise hadn't been here before, but. And also feel similar about the snow.

Alex Bailey [00:02:59]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Cory Ames [00:02:59]:
I'm interested. Alex, for folks who end up doing work like yourself that is in service of your community, where did that appetite come from for you? Is there some sort of specific influence growing up? Or maybe it was the Teach for America experience or a lot of that woven all together. But I'm wondering, why did you have the interest and the desire to do something that was very directly in service of others?

Alex Bailey [00:03:24]:
Oh, man, what an awesome question. Yeah. I mean, for sure, it's gonna sound cliche, because you hear people say this all the time, like, it runs in my family. My whole family does this. But no, I literally mean that I come from a family of ministers, so they're always doing everything for their churches. And my. My stepfather was a pastor. My grandparents, almost the day they passed, were doing service at their church.

Alex Bailey [00:03:45]:
So it's definitely something that's been definitely woven into my DNA. And then secondly, it's interesting because my parents worked corporate. Right. America. And not that they, like, hated their jobs, but I definitely. There were times I heard of just the peace of not feeling like there was a human side to some of the things that they had to do. Right. And so I really loved working in education.

Alex Bailey [00:04:08]:
Since I was younger, I would always be working with, like, younger kids at, like, church or camps. And over time, I knew, like, working with youth was something that really fueled me. And I felt like I was, at least in certain seasons of my life, definitely almost called to do. Not that I was always amazing at it. Definitely tested my patience sometimes. But, yeah, I really believe service is something that's been woven in. And in the end, I Think we think of service as very potentially one way. Right.

Alex Bailey [00:04:34]:
Okay. I'm coming into the community, I'm helping. I see it as definitely a very transactional and very like two way dynamic. Right. By just working with others, I'm learning so much. I said this in the classroom, like, my students taught me more about myself than like, I could teach about myself. Right. The joys that I find, the happiness I find, my things that I'm impatient about.

Alex Bailey [00:04:54]:
Right. As a quick side note, always joke my students. I found out that I was like a little bit claustrophobic because I was working with kids and they like surround my desk and I'm like, I'm claustrophobic. Back up. I didn't realize that. Right. So it's little stuff like that quirks about myself. I really feel like working, especially with youth, really holds a mirror to who you are and the type of adult and human you are in this world.

Alex Bailey [00:05:15]:
Yeah.

Cory Ames [00:05:16]:
Alex, from my own due diligence, I'd love if you could tell us a little about your grandparents.

Alex Bailey [00:05:23]:
Yeah.

Cory Ames [00:05:23]:
And how that influences the organization Black outside that you started a few years ago.

Alex Bailey [00:05:27]:
Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So my grandparents both were amazing souls in this world. You know, going back to service, my grandmother would like knit blankets and quilts for the local church and local shelters and give them out to folks or sell them for different proceeds through fundraiser the church. And so I saw that side. And then my grandfather was actually the first director at our local garden center, community garden, basically, in Mansfield, Ohio, which is our home, our family's hometown. If you ever seen Shawshank Redemption, it's filmed there.

Alex Bailey [00:05:58]:
That's our only claim to fame, really. So. Yeah. But he had a deep connection to the land. He was a gardener. So he's one of those people you ever walk around, they're like, this plant, this plant, this plant. You know, he was like a walking eye naturalist app. And it was beautiful as a young person taking in all that wisdom.

Alex Bailey [00:06:19]:
Right. And felt like ancestral wisdom that he had. I don't think I would have put those words to it back then. But he talked about how the things that he learned about plants, he learned from his great grandmother. So I'm literally. And my great, great great grandmother probably learned those from her great grandmother, you know, so I'm talking two, three hundred years of connection to the land. Everything as small as, hey, I know what to do with these mint leaves and can make a tea to solve this. Or hey, actually if you're growing this plant, here's what you need to do.

Alex Bailey [00:06:47]:
Or we'd look at maple trees, and he's like, yeah, if you tap it at a certain time, here's how the SAP comes out. And was powerful learning those things. And I didn't realize, in hindsight, look back at the trajectory of my life, he was definitely planting seeds in me that have now come to harvest in the work I do. You know, pun intended. No pun intended. Right. And so, yeah, I think it was one. That deep connection to the land.

Alex Bailey [00:07:08]:
And then you combine that with my grandmother's just love of community, love of service, just love of people. She's such a welcoming soul. She. She did not love the outdoors, tragically, just because she had a very. Just traumatic experience with sexual assault in the outdoors. With that, she never really had a deep connection there and was always really fearful for my grandfather and I would go out places, which was a real generational trauma she was trying to overcome. But those two kind of stories really, really, to me, are the foundation and potentially even like a microcosm of the greater communal experience of black folks in the outdoors, at least in America. Right.

Alex Bailey [00:07:44]:
It's a combination of both tragedy and triumph. Right. For many black folks. Like, we can think back to Harriet Tubman, the Buffalo Soldiers. So many powerful black folks. They did amazing things in the outdoors. I found refuge in the outdoors. Dr.

Alex Bailey [00:07:57]:
Martin Luther King being one of them. I always joke that he. When folks are like, Dr. King was outdoors, I was like, yeah, read his speeches. He's talking about mountains. He's talking about rivers. Those are real things in places he visited. But then we have a tragedy of our experience in America.

Alex Bailey [00:08:10]:
Right. And how for a lot of black folks, there's a real generational fear about going outdoors. You want me to go to the woods and the dark and, like, the rural South, Like, A plus B is not equal. In C, it's like something would say, like, no way. So going back to what you asked for us, I feel like the dichotomy of the two experiences of my grandmother and grandfather in the outdoors really represents some of the challenges and joys that we navigate trying to connect more black communities to nature. Yeah.

Cory Ames [00:08:39]:
And I think from what I could understand from the timeline, your grandparents maybe aren't with us anymore.

Alex Bailey [00:08:44]:
Yeah.

Cory Ames [00:08:45]:
But I'm interested. What do you think they might say about the work that you're doing and the organization that you're running?

Alex Bailey [00:08:53]:
Yeah. It's funny. I was joking with one of my cousins, like, the other day, and I was like, I feel like my grandfather would be very proud and also shaking his head, like, My grandson has all these tattoos, and he's snowboarding the west and stuff. Yeah. But, no, I know my grandfather will be proud, and I really feel like his spirit and energy surround us. And honestly, when I'm outdoors, I honestly feel my grandmother a lot and her energy, just because I feel like I get. I do. I get to experience and go places that they only dreamed of.

Alex Bailey [00:09:21]:
Right. My other grandmother, my paternal grandmother on my father's side, passed away last year. She was 99. I also have a deep connection to land on my father's side. She literally passed away on the farm that we had in rural North Carolina. And I would always actually send her pictures of places I would go, like, physically, like from Walgreens, and get them sent to her house because she did not have a cell phone. And the idea of, like, teaching her a computer, that was a whole different ordeal. So I would send her pictures, or when I go visit once a year, I would bring her pictures of these places, and she would just marvel at them.

Alex Bailey [00:09:51]:
Picture of me standing on top of a mountain in Idaho. Picture of me snowboarding in Colorado. Pictures of me hiking in New Mexico. Picture of me with the kids in Big Bend. Right. And she was just so proud to say, my grandson is going out and experiencing things that I didn't get to. And I heard a person say this, and it's really stuck with me. She's like, every time I go outdoors, I really think about my family and the opportunities that they did have.

Alex Bailey [00:10:14]:
Right. That helped me to where I'm at and the. And also the opportunities they didn't have, which I feel like I'm taking advantage of in my lifetime to go explore and go see.

Cory Ames [00:10:23]:
So the seeds were planted in many different ways. It sounds throughout your upbringing, but when did you start to harvest? When did it go from maybe subconscious to conscious and then put that together to where you conceived of what black outside somewhat resembles today?

Alex Bailey [00:10:39]:
Yeah. It actually started when I was in college, so I lived with my grandparents when I was in college, and I loved them dearly. I was 18, 19 years old. I was playing college, and then I would come home for the summer, and I was, like, with them, and I love them, but after three weeks, I was like, okay, I need to get out. They lived a very simple life. My grandfather would wake up at 5:30. You know, he was in the Navy before, so he's a Navy veteran. He would do his walk.

Alex Bailey [00:11:03]:
He would make grits. You know, we would go. He would actually stick in the service, would go to the nursing home, and Volunteer time there, come back home, they'd watch the 12 o' clock news, eat dinner by four, they're in bed by eight. And as a 19 year old kid, you can imagine you're like, okay, I want to get out and do stuff. So I bring that to forefront of the story to say or the connection that I was. It was winter and I was like, I was like, I love my grandparents, but I'm going to have to get out of the house and no understand. They definitely always encouraged me to go explore the world. And so I just applied on a whim to work at this sports camp in the northeast.

Alex Bailey [00:11:35]:
And it was funny.

Cory Ames [00:11:36]:
I applied.

Alex Bailey [00:11:37]:
I like, it was like the beginning of the holiday break in the winter and it was like three days later, this camp director calls me. Hey. And basically offered me a job, like pretty much on the phone and we're still actually in connection that he texted me just before, few weeks ago and he offered me this job. And I was like, okay. And I was like, I've never been to New Hampshire. I've never been a camp counselor. I know I can work with kids. I don't know what this is.

Alex Bailey [00:11:58]:
So I remember walking upstairs, my grandparents, I'm like, hey, this summer I'm gonna be in New Hampshire for eight weeks. And my grandpa's okay, all right, great. He starts calling all his friends. Yeah, my grandson's going out in New Hampshire, some job. I don't know what he's doing out there. And me and my grandma's are going where do what? So anyway, that experience was what transformed my perspective of the outdoors and the power has on youth. I ended up working at this sports camp for three consecutive summers. I had the same cabin of kids for three years.

Alex Bailey [00:12:25]:
So I watched them just grow more confident, more collaborative, just, yeah, have a lot more connection to nature. And even though it was a sports camp, it was seven weeks, it was all boys, kind of like Lord of the Flies in a way. Yeah, a lot of energy there. A lot of testosterone energy that was floating around there, but undeveloped. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Hormones are all over the place in the summer. But I love my experience and.

Alex Bailey [00:12:51]:
But the thing that I realized at the end during my last year was, man, there are not that many kids that look like me that are here at this camp. I noticed it, but I was really conscious of it. Especially I was going to my senior year of college. I was an education major. I was volunteering to tutor youth in Columbus, in urban Columbus, Ohio during the year. And I would just see youth there. And I'm like, oh, man, I wish that kid had opportunity to go to this camp. There's no way they could afford it.

Alex Bailey [00:13:20]:
There's got to be something there. So I would say, like, my grandfather planted the seeds. I felt like that summer camp watered those seeds, and then they stayed dormant for a while. And then it was towards the end of my time leadership coaching with Teach for America, that it all just clicked. And I'm like, we need to create a program for this. Because there's such a lack of diversity in outdoor education programming for kids, an opportunity we got to create a program that really hits it directly on the head. And that's kind of where Black Outside started.

Cory Ames [00:13:47]:
Well, if you could, then let's dive a little bit more into the details of Black Outside's programming and services. Maybe how that shifted. I think it's been about 5ish years.

Alex Bailey [00:13:56]:
You started the organization.

Cory Ames [00:13:57]:
So, yeah, let me know maybe how that's matured and changed and what it is that y' all offer today.

Alex Bailey [00:14:01]:
Specifically, when I first wrote down the idea of Black Outside, I was actually hiking in the Catskill Mountains. And it was like, some. A year before we actually started, and I was hiking and, like, there, and I met this beautiful overlook. The overlook that everyone's trying to take their IG pictures on. It was like, one of those. And I'm on this overlook, and I'm looking around, and I realize I'm like, I think I'm the only black person at this entire park. Right? And so I was there, and I just end up journaling, and I journal and I write down, man, we just need to get more black people outside. And I was like, oh, that's the name Black Outside.

Alex Bailey [00:14:35]:
Right? So that's where the name came from. And then the first thing I wrote down under that was like, sports camp for black boys. Let's do it. I joke about that because we. Our largest program is a summer camp for girls. While the universe is like, yep, no, there's other ways that this is going to happen. So the way Black Outside evolved, we started off in with a five person, five high school seniors, one junior, four. Four seniors.

Alex Bailey [00:14:58]:
They had never been to a state park before. A friend and I have mentored some of the kids through an organization locally, 100 black men, and through Teach for America, and we took them to a state park, and that was kind of our pilot experience. Right. Once I did all the, like, board stuff, 501C3 stuff, and we got a little mini grant to do it. And during that experience, I Remember, we hiked into the night. We did a night hike with the boys, and we started looking up at the stars, and we had a powerful moment with the youth where we told them, like, these are the same stars that your ancestors looked at. And it just got emotional really quick. They're like, whoa.

Alex Bailey [00:15:30]:
I didn't think about that. And all those youth to this day are like, that was one of the more powerful experiences I've had, just a weekend of camping. So in my head, I'm like, man, can we multiply this for more youth and experiences? So in my head, I was still kind of stuck on this boys camp for sure. Wanted to find a way to make space for girls. But it was about a month and a half before that we took those boys out. I found out that San Antonio had the first summer camp for black girls in the whole country. What? And I found it out through a documentary walk on the river about black history in San Antonio. And it was like a pat.

Alex Bailey [00:16:07]:
Like a passing three to five minute kind of thing. Like, they're talking. They're like, yeah, 1924, there was a summer camp for black girls here. And then they interviewed one person at this church. And I was like, wait, what? So I wrote that down, ended up going to the church. I was just wanting to learn more. And I just had this moment where I'm like, man, what if we were to, like, revive this camp? Because it ceased operations in the 60s? And we found out the name was Camp Founder Girls. We found out it was founded because they were excluded from predominantly white camps.

Alex Bailey [00:16:34]:
And we got permission from one of the elders of the church who attended the camp, who comes out to camp every year, Ms. Gaynor. Gaynor. To hang out with the. With the girls. And so you see how it just, like, naturally, organically evolved. It started off with these five boys that I mentored. So we're like, okay, I guess there's some type of boys program camping thing here.

Alex Bailey [00:16:51]:
And then I love summer camp. And all of a sudden, there's this girls camp history that's local and grassroots and, like, such a powerful story. And so what it evolved into was kind of that over time. And today, five years in, we currently have three programs. Our third, newest one, we have Camp Founder Girls, which is our largest one. Every summer, we serve 160 campers that come from 12 different states to fly in to attend camp. So about 50, 60% of our campers come locally, regionally, from San Antonio and adjacent counties. And then the other 40% come from all over Texas and around the country.

Alex Bailey [00:17:29]:
So it's a powerful experience of celebrating black girlhood in the outdoors. Yeah. Them connecting to nature. And I always tell our boys this in our boys program. I'm like, yo, the girls will hike you under the table. Like, they are, like, resilient. They're out there. I mean, it's like 95 degrees.

Alex Bailey [00:17:43]:
They're climbing. They're doing all the activities. There's no complaints. They're just like, it's hot. Just give me some more water. I'm like, man. And then we have a boys program, which is a little bit more of an intimate program called Brothers with the Land. We have a cohort of about 15 or so boys that we pair with about seven to eight black male mentors, similar to how it first started.

Alex Bailey [00:18:00]:
Right. And we take them on camping trips, fly fishing, and do like deep wilderness experiences with them to build mentorship, leadership and just community building and healing for those boys. And then our third newest program that we're launching is homecoming. That is an initiative to really connect more black families and adults to nature. We still want the crux of our work to be youthful, but we realize the youth get on fire and get excited to do these things. And then they come back home and the parents are like, what about us? We want to do these now. So we've really been trying to figure out a way creatively to build out, to build out family and adult programming.

Cory Ames [00:18:34]:
And that's a single day event. And that'll be something annually.

Alex Bailey [00:18:38]:
Yeah. So annually will be our big homecoming event. And then throughout the year, our intention, our hope is to provide different hiking outdoor experiences that are family based. And so one example, our adult base, one example, we are collaborating with a national black men's mental health organization. We're taking about 30 black men to Big Bend for a weekend. So that will be under our umbrella of homecoming. And the whole theme is like coming back home to the land. Right.

Alex Bailey [00:19:00]:
And really thinking about us, like really reconnecting ourselves. We're intentional about that word. Back to community and back to the land. Through families, through adults. Because realize the more families and adults that are getting out in our community, it's going to radiate back into a youth. Yeah.

Cory Ames [00:19:14]:
And so how structured are the programs or the experiences when they're at a state park or wherever they might be? Is it just purely the thing like we're going on a hike or whatever? Or do you have some kind of framework or like structure that you're working through as you. You offer the weekend or the day trips or Whatever.

Alex Bailey [00:19:31]:
I love that question that you asked because I think that's where we differentiate a little bit from other outdoor programs. Not saying other outdoor programs are bad, they're great, but we really are lean into a lot of like black joy and organic joy. Right. We try not to over structure camping experiences. I was sharing this with someone who worked for the Inaturalist app, and I love Inaturalist, don't get it wrong, but I said I was like, the first time a kid is at a state park, their brain is experiencing so many new things at one time. It might be overload to be like, okay, now identify 20 trees while you're here. And so we love our natural Sabbath. Great app.

Alex Bailey [00:20:08]:
But at the same time, I share that because we're not much of a environmental education org from the sense of like tree identification, bird identification. We want more kids to foster their experience and their connection organically of what they love. So when we do go out camping, we do have hikes, we do reflection activities, but we also allow the youth to really create the space and the programming for what they want. 2. Are you feeling a hard hike or more easy hike to today? Are you wanting to connect with water today or do you want to just relax? Right. We really give youth options throughout our experiences so that they can feel like they're opting into different ways of connecting to nature and doing it together. Because I think that's the cool thing for our programs. We get youth from all over the city.

Alex Bailey [00:20:50]:
So we have kids that come from the east side, we got kids that come from the north side, we have kids that go to private schools, we have kids that go to public schools. And they're able to connect across lines of difference like class, neighborhood, community, coming from single parent homes, multi parent homes. And it's really powerful for them to foster those connections organically in nature. One other thing that we're really intentional about is we, we don't believe nature has to be one thing. So we do everything from backpacking, kayaking, camping, birding, yoga, you name it, climbing. We try to check it all off. Yeah.

Cory Ames [00:21:22]:
And so it's interesting. Kids are coming from all over the city, different schools and. But I'm wondering, is there like, what's the introduction process? How do they find out about y'?

Alex Bailey [00:21:30]:
All?

Cory Ames [00:21:30]:
Is it like an application based process or. Yeah, how do they opt in?

Alex Bailey [00:21:34]:
Yeah, we always joke that, have you seen Black Panther? Yeah, yeah, they do like the Wakanda call. And like people just emerge. That's what's kind of like, honestly, like we Don't. Compared to other outdoor programs, we don't have to do much recruiting. Folks ask us, like, how do you recruit kids? Like, our summer camp fills up in 36 hours. We put one flyer out on Instagram. That's it, and it's done. We're trying to figure out a more equitable way to ensure more people hear about us.

Alex Bailey [00:21:57]:
But honestly, it is very grassroots. It's very, like, word of mouth that people hear about us. It's, oh, I heard about this because my cousin or I heard about this because this person in my church went on a camping trip with y' all and I wanted to sign up. Yeah. And so, yeah, that's the first thing. And then secondly, yeah, we have a youth apply. We do parent info sessions so parents know what they're getting into. And also for parents, naturally, thankfully, our parents have a lot of trust with us.

Alex Bailey [00:22:19]:
Naturally, they're still like, where are you taking my kid? Right. It's. It's great. I love. I love family and caregiver info sessions because we get the best questions and not, like a mean, like, way. It's just. It's hilarious because lot of it was like, okay, we trust you. And they're like, but are there gonna be, like, mountain lions out there? I'm like, no, we're only going to this little state park.

Alex Bailey [00:22:37]:
Are they gonna be bears there? I'm like, no, there's no bears at Government Canyon, what's right near San Antonio. But in the end, they're like, okay, anyway, just. We trust y'. All. I just wanted to know what's gonna be out there. Yeah, it's really great. And then one also powerful thing that we love doing is after our trip, sending families pictures. We've had families write us notes.

Alex Bailey [00:22:56]:
They're like, I never thought my kid would be on top of a mountain at Big Bend. I never thought my kid would be hiking in Colorado, thanks to y'. All. So it's really powerful that for their families, they know how resilient, how amazing their young person is. But to see a photo of that, of a place that maybe they didn't imagine their kid would be, and then to see with kids that look like them, man, for many families, that really fires them up to share more about our work. And I think it's a full circle experience, because then they tell others. And then we get another wave of kids that come into our program.

Cory Ames [00:23:25]:
Well, and then for the youth, are there particular outcomes that you're expecting from their experiences? Like, for them personally, is there something that you and your organization, like, you have in mind that you hope for them to achieve, or is it purely like you maybe said before, it can be anything can be their complete own experience. Do you have any particular aspirations or milestones that you seek for the youth that engage with your programming?

Alex Bailey [00:23:48]:
Yeah, I mean, we have three pillars that we try to work around and weave in. They're explore self, explore culture, explore outdoors. So, you know, the self piece is building kids confidence, especially in the outdoors. I mean, it's great. Some of our kids have now returned for, like, year two, year three. It's like we just hand them the 10. They're like, oh, yeah, I could set this up. Oh, yeah, Mr.

Alex Bailey [00:24:09]:
I'll go to the front of the state park. I'll get the trail maps. Like, some of them literally will get out the trail map. Start, like, looking around like, okay, I think I want to do this trail because I could already see that it's difficult, but not too difficult. It's only 3.6. I'm like, man, okay, you're on it. So that I think that confidence piece is really big piece alongside we, alongside resiliency, but we really challenge the narrative of we teach kids resiliency. We, our kids come to us very resilient.

Alex Bailey [00:24:34]:
We allow nature to hold a mirror to show them how resilient they are. Right? And so those are the explore self piece of diving inward. Right. That the kids get to experience by going on a challenging hike. That sometimes the more kids get on the hikes are like, I don't know if I'm gonna finish this. I'm like, you got it. You can do it. Then afterwards, they.

Alex Bailey [00:24:47]:
It's two or three weeks later, they'll message us be like, when are we going on the next one? So that's the self piece we're trying to cultivate, explore culture. We're really, with our youth, trying to challenge this narrative that black people don't go outdoors because our youth will come to us. And naturally said they're like, I don't know. I don't know. You got me out here doing this stuff. I don't know. They'll say something I won't repeat on the podcast. But, yeah, they're like, yeah, man, you got me out here doing this stuff, man.

Alex Bailey [00:25:08]:
And. But we really want our youth to understand that actually no Black people have been doing this for hundreds of years, all the way back to Africa. Right? It's just unfortunate in this era of society, you've been told and marketing and through implicit messaging that these spaces aren't for you. And they are. They're for everyone. So really explore culture of, like, our cultural connections. And then in community, I think it's powerful that our whole team is black. So they're like, first kids, I'm actually going, your first backpacking experience, and it's all black guides.

Alex Bailey [00:25:36]:
So you're really in your brain. You're like, wait a second. Society's telling me that this is an activity for me, but I'm looking at someone who shares my culture, shares my race, talks similar to me, from a similar neighbor, went to a historically black college, and it's doing this. Two and two aren't adding up. Right. So we really like creating that dissonance for kids. And then lastly, explore outdoors. Just.

Alex Bailey [00:25:56]:
Yeah. Their love and affinity for nature. Our hope, our outcome, our hope there is that, you know, over time, that they feel comfortable doing it themselves. And not necessarily I'm gonna backpack the Air Appalachian Trail by myself. But even something as simple, like, we've had kids messages like, yeah, I was in college. It was. I was stressed out in the semester. I decided to just take a walk outside.

Alex Bailey [00:26:12]:
I knew it was, like, going to be restorative for me. That is a big piece that we'd like to see.

Cory Ames [00:26:16]:
And over the few years, have there been any bits of feedback or results from the youth that you've been most surprised at that you wouldn't have expected to hear recounted or shared?

Alex Bailey [00:26:27]:
Yeah, I think two. One was actually during our first year backpacking, one of our summer campers. So she had done the traditional summer camp cabins, and so this was her first time camping. And she said to me during a hike, she looks at me. I mean, we're like three miles in the backcountry in Colorado. And she's like, you know, Mr. Alex, I see camping as a black thing. And I was like, what? And, you know, I thought she was saying, like, how black people do this, but she's like, oh, I see it as a black thing.

Alex Bailey [00:26:53]:
And I was like, tell me more. She's, I've only done a summer camp with black people. I've only camped with y'. All. She's like, I know it's predominantly white, but I see it as a black thing because I've only experienced this with black people. And I was like, whoa, that's powerful for a black kid to say. Yeah. So that's one of the bigger outcomes, like surprises.

Alex Bailey [00:27:09]:
I was like, man, they're really getting it. But then I think, honestly, it's which. I knew there was a connection there. As a former teacher, I taught high school for five years, but getting notes from families where they're like, my kids grades have improved, improved dramatically since being in your program. I'm like, really? Because we don't talk anything about academics. We'll check in natural, like, how our class is going. We'll do the usual. We call it joke, like, uncle nephew talk.

Alex Bailey [00:27:29]:
Okay, how's it going? How's classes? You know, don't ask for it to be followed. Like, it's good. Kids won't give you just a very surface level answer. You're like, okay, right. Because we're not an academic organization. And I'm very. We're very intentional about that. But, yeah.

Alex Bailey [00:27:41]:
And then, like, parents will message us, like, yeah, my kids, like, really? Ever since they started your program, I've just been focused more in class, more confident. That was something I didn't expect to have very direct, tangible outcomes. So I thought it'd be maybe longer term and very more like social benefits. Oh, they come back home, they have more friends now. But no, like, we've had multiple parents messages. Yeah. Like, literally, their GPA went up 4 percentage points since they've gone to Colorado. And just.

Alex Bailey [00:28:05]:
I just noticed a market change in their focus and attention in school. And that has been really surprising and really great because again, that's not our direct intention. That's maybe an implicit outcome, but it's not something we're caving, like, catering our mission towards.

Cory Ames [00:28:18]:
In conversations with funders and donors, what piece of it do you feel like you have to do the most convincing on? Or what do you have to be most intentional about with the narrative? Like, where do you get the greatest amount of friction or resistance to getting partner organizations?

Alex Bailey [00:28:33]:
Friction and resistance. That's the swan. Yeah. I mean, I'll name specifically here in San Antonio. Right. And this is something that I can imagine you can speak into too, is how do we really expand the narrative of what the outdoors is here in San Antonio? Right? Because the moment I say, oh, we have a summer camp, we've had funders. Oh, great, you do sports camps. And I'm like, look, I play college football at a small school.

Alex Bailey [00:28:57]:
I love football. Tonight I'm watching a Monday night Football game. Who? Diego Bangles. I love sports. And also I'm like, we don't do sports camps. That's just because you hear camp. Why is it automatically sports? Or why is it automatically, like, very academic, focused? Okay, what are the academic outcomes? We've been asked that by a few funders. Okay, so how are you tying this to Texas education standards and that's one piece of area.

Alex Bailey [00:29:17]:
I'm like, no, we're not doing that. Why? We're not like, that's. I love the classroom. I taught for five years. I get it. But people don't realize also our kids in Texas are literally in school the most out of any students across the US like, they have the most amount of time in schools, the most amount of time under fluorescent lights, the most amount of state tests. And so one thing I've been challenged is like, we need to give kids a break. Right.

Alex Bailey [00:29:39]:
It's healthy to give them a break. But to really say when we say, yeah, we're just, we're taking them outdoors and yeah, you might just say, oh, they're just hiking. But there's so many more outcomes to that of like social, emotional benefits, kids, mental health. And then obviously when we think about the conservation conversation and climate change. Right. It's so important. Kids are connected to nature, like all kids. It can't just be one section of kids that are fluent and have access, that connect to nature.

Alex Bailey [00:30:05]:
The more kids that are connected to it, the more they're going to want to protect it. So for funders, I think that's been interesting dialogue to say, yes, it's great. We have academic camps and programs. We're not saying we want to remove those, we're just saying we want to add to those. We think by a kid hiking in Colorado, then coming back and then going to academic camp, it's only the two are going to complement each other. And so how do we think more holistically about our youth experience here in San Antonio that isn't just geared towards like academic sports. Academic sports, there's like third, fourth things that you can do. The arts, nature, that are really going to foster more well rounded future leaders of our community.

Cory Ames [00:30:41]:
Well, I mean, it's interesting. It could really have you optimize or prioritize things organizationally for the wrong outcomes.

Alex Bailey [00:30:48]:
Yeah.

Cory Ames [00:30:49]:
Especially to wrongly correlate what's leading to the other. As if someone's getting bad grades or struggling in school, maybe they need more time outdoors. Yes.

Alex Bailey [00:30:56]:
And that educators don't like hearing that. Right. They're like, that means more time in intervention. I'm like, no, it actually probably means that the opposite. It's inter. I mean this is interesting parallel. But I think about it with working out, right. When you.

Alex Bailey [00:31:06]:
It's the same like your body, Right. If you over train a muscle, the best solution to gain more strength is to actually deload Right. And stop training it for a little bit and then you'll gain that strength back even more. Sometimes 1.5 to 2 times more. I've been nerding out on workout stuff, but you get the point. I wish we applied more things that our bodies tell us and nature tells us. Right. Nature also teaches us their seasons for rest.

Alex Bailey [00:31:29]:
Winter right there. Seasons for blooming and blossoming. Similarly for our youth. They deserve rest. They deserve seasons of not being over inundated with school. That is something I've had to push against. And I'll name. Like, we get a lot of inquiries like, can you do STEM education at your program? Do stem.

Alex Bailey [00:31:44]:
Stem, stem. And I was like, guys, I love stem. I like stem. I'm a history teacher. But nothing against them, nothing against them. I don't want to get jumped in the comments or anything like that, but I like stem. But we've said no to some potential grants that have come our way. Because I'm like, yeah, we're not going to change.

Alex Bailey [00:32:01]:
We're not going to turn our camps into academic camps, like point blank period. That's not. It's not school. Now, we might, maybe we could weave in one activity. Potentially. Potentially. But even that, we don't want to lose sight of our mission. And our mission has always been focused on reconnecting black youth to the outdoors.

Alex Bailey [00:32:16]:
Doing that through a model that is focused on social, emotional learning, the social side and the emotional opportunity to reflect.

Cory Ames [00:32:21]:
On our own being well, and just the intensity of being a young person right now, it seems, from academics, for one, but to all the social and emotional complexities of technology.

Alex Bailey [00:32:33]:
Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah, it's a lot. I mean, that's. Other quick surprise, I would say for you too, is a lot of our youth love being off their phones for a bit. I mean, at first, the first day, they're like, man, what do I do? And I always joke with the kids. I'm like, this is what life was like in the late 1900s, right? I was like, you just had to figure it out. They're like, what you mean there's no service? But do you end up liking it? They're like, hey, I needed a break from my phone for a little bit.

Alex Bailey [00:33:01]:
I'm just. They might download a movie here and there and watch that. And we. And that's the thing. It's actually interesting. We don't. Some programs, like, take phones away from kids. We do at summer camp, just because it's also a liability thing having phones everywhere.

Alex Bailey [00:33:12]:
But even then at camp, they have an Hour a day of phone time. But when we're with our older kids, like in the backcountry, we let them have their phones, and they opt in to lady, like, I don't know, I don't want to have my phone. Or I only just use my phone to just take pictures. Sometimes kids are like, here, hold my phone for the hike. They want a break. And I feel like, as the adults in the world, sometimes we forget that at least millennials, we remember a time when there were no phones. Right. But the kids these days, I know I sound like an old head, but like, you these days, yeah.

Alex Bailey [00:33:39]:
They don't know that they've always grown up. We've always been putting iPads, iPhones, I this, I that right in front of them. And for them, it's actually a very nostalgic experience to not have that. And very freeing.

Cory Ames [00:33:49]:
I mean, that's. That's the same for all of us too, you know, and many of us would have the very same experience going in the backcountry for the first 24 hours because it's more of an addictive sense of being like, I'm used to having the stimuli available at all points in time. And so, yeah, you all. Everyone needs that.

Alex Bailey [00:34:05]:
Yeah.

Cory Ames [00:34:05]:
Not just young people, for sure. So, Alex, I'm curious on two sides of it. What do you feel like your organization does extremely well? Like, where are your strongest points? Where are your strengths? And then maybe where are some limits to yalls offering your programming or just structurally as an organization right now? Like, what do you need to focus on there? So feel free to start. We'll start strong.

Alex Bailey [00:34:30]:
Yeah, for sure. Our strength is fostering community with youth. Many of our youth will come out of our program with new friends, new connections. It's powerful. Like, I didn't even realize it's a couple of youth. One of our. You just started school, university in North Texas. And she was sharing.

Alex Bailey [00:34:48]:
She's like, yeah, I share my location with all my fellow campers at camp. It's like, deep connections. I'm talking kids. Like. Like, they're. Some of our kids from that first camping trip from 2019 are still friends today. They're like, oh, yeah, I check in on Zion. I just checked in on Instagram.

Alex Bailey [00:35:00]:
Like, I mean, I'm talking deep community. I'm like, man, y' all are like, it really is like a brotherhood or sisterhood and to making the outdoors are allowing the outdoors to feel like a place of home. We've had a few. You say that they're like, this Feels like a family cookout outdoors. And that's what we want it to feel like. We don't want it to feel like this abstract thing, that there's a connection there. So that's one area we're really great at, I think, where we have limits on our capacity. Oh gosh, I wish we could serve every black kid in San Antonio.

Alex Bailey [00:35:28]:
I wish we could serve every black kid in the U. S. We just can't. And so that's a huge limitation of us is that we have wait lists for all our programs. And it just aches my heart because I'm like, I want to expand, but I also realize there's limitations. Just like nature teaches us, right. We can't just keep growing and growing. Right.

Alex Bailey [00:35:43]:
Without limitations. That that's actually a big one. Is that just our capacity is a huge issue. And then I think programmatically, although we have a lot of diversity in our program, like in our actual programming, I still think which we're getting. I think we're. Now that we're in season six of black outside or programming season six, we can still push it a little more. That's why I'm pushing my team. I'm like, yeah, I'm read.

Alex Bailey [00:36:04]:
I think some of our kids are like itching to say, okay, I backpack for three days, I want to do five. I've backpacked for five days. Can we kayak, maybe do it? So that's the next phase of black outside that we're really hoping to expand to is just more deeper expedition experiences for kids. Our longest experience right now is our kids do a three day, two, two night trip in Colorado which is great. But they're up there for a week. So they like base camp at an off grid facility and then they backpack in, backpack out. So for a lot of kids that's, that's enough. They're like, I'm good.

Alex Bailey [00:36:33]:
But there's a section of kids that are like, this is easy. I want the next thing. Can we, yeah, can we go out there to the woods? Seven days, ten days. So that's our hope, is that we can craft like a kind of longer, more like physically challenging experience for some of our youth. And I think they would really. A lot of our youth will rise to the occasion because they love, they love being out there and they love the pictures. They love the idea of seeing moose tracks and all those things.

Cory Ames [00:36:58]:
My next question, Alex, I'm curious. It's not just going to be black outside's responsibility to make the outdoors more inclusive in a. Clearly a Place that's accessible and available to everyone. So I'm wondering what do you feel like needs to be done or could be done from like an industry wide perspective, from even like a local perspective? Because for one, I'm a Texas master naturalist, a member of the Native Plant Society of Texas, and those groups are pretty white.

Alex Bailey [00:37:26]:
Yeah.

Cory Ames [00:37:26]:
So one, they're mainly retirees. But I do think that's a great thing to do when you retire. Besides that, I would love more diversity in those groups. But I'm curious, what do you think from an external perspective, other outside forces would be great contributions to making the outdoors more inclusive?

Alex Bailey [00:37:41]:
Yeah, I think one is a lot more private industry folks. Our businesses just continuing to uplift and support black storytelling. Bipoc storytelling, just organizations that are doing it. Because what you'll find, I'll just name it. What you'll find sometimes is some, not all, but some of the non profits that get a lot of attention, like locally and regionally may not have as much diversity as potentially other groups that are doing a lot of deeper work. Right? Yeah. I mean there's a lot of awesome organizations that do amazing outdoor programming, but because it doesn't fit the typical, let's put on hiking boots and throw, put the kids in tents. Then it's like that's not seen as outdoors.

Alex Bailey [00:38:22]:
I'm like, wait a second. If this group is doing community walks and hikes every week, if they're a run club, we're collaborating with the urban run club. They're getting 200, 300 people, black people out in nature every week to run for three to five miles. And then they're like dancing in the park after that is outdoors. So those are the types of stories that I think continue to uplift like through private industry folks. So just, yeah, if you're a running shoe company, why don't you go there? There's 200 black folks that are looking for running shoes. Like it'd be a great place to market. So there's the marketing side of it.

Alex Bailey [00:38:52]:
I think that's really important. I think secondly is also, also like local folks just supporting the organizations that are doing it. Right. Obviously there's us in black outside, but across the country there's a lot of grassroots organizations that are really working intentionally on diversity in the outdoors. And, and so it's so important that local folks continue to support that work. Yeah. And then lastly, I think just really there's a lot of. This is an answer.

Alex Bailey [00:39:16]:
This is a response I haven't given before. So I may need a Little Runway to get to it. But there's a lot of community knowledge around nature especially. I'll just speak in the black community with elders in our community that know so much about. Think about my grandfather. Like, if he was here today and sat down, he would be rattling off plants, rattling off different trails that he knows, rattling off his experience, like, growing up in Alabama, Kentucky. He was stationed in the Philippines. What he experienced there, managing a garden, all those things.

Alex Bailey [00:39:47]:
So I would love to see a world where more especially environmental orgs tap into just elders in the community, even as simple as going to a local church. Be like, hey, do y' all have a garden? How do you manage this garden? I don't know. I just. I wish there was a more tangible thing I could. I could share there. But I just think there's something that's missing with the community knowledge that exists already in a lot of our communities. That's there because if you come into our communities and say, who knows the most about trees? Most of the kids will be like, yeah, my auntie, my grandma. Like, you know what I'm saying? So it's there.

Alex Bailey [00:40:20]:
And I would love to see groups like, even master naturalists tap into that, because I know, like, our grannies aren't on the naturalist app. They have it in their head. They've had to memorize it. So I think there's some shared learning that could be done. What would it look like for the naturalist app to be introduced in an older person's home? Right. And have them share knowledge or have them input different plants or different connections? Like, that's just an idea. I'm not paid by them, so I don't know, but I just want to throw it out there.

Cory Ames [00:40:49]:
But I think your organization is extremely representative of that point, too, with the story of camp founder Girls, which the first time I heard of that story is encountering it through black outside. And like, God dang, this existed in San Antonio. It's like, what a wonderful thing to have added to the stories, the city's history that is not obviously well known enough. What an accolade to have. And along with that, what a large base of community knowledge that had been largely untapped.

Alex Bailey [00:41:18]:
Yeah, that's a. You said it, bro. Untapped community knowledge. That was good. Yeah.

Cory Ames [00:41:23]:
Well, Alex, a little more rapid fire for you. What are a couple of your favorite natural areas here in the greater San Antonio region?

Alex Bailey [00:41:30]:
Oh, okay. Favorite City Park. McAllister. Favorite Greenway Park, Fox Park, Trailhead on the north northwest side. A lot of people don't know about it. Hidden gem connects you all the way up to La Contera. Can connect you all the way down to Leon Creek. Great favorite area to sit by the river A Sequia park on the southeast side.

Alex Bailey [00:41:52]:
They have waterfalls and then favorite state park in our region. This is like Central Texas hill country, I would say probably honestly the first one we took kids Hill country, state area. I don't get out there as much as I would like, but beautiful park. Yeah. Very untapped. A lot of people don't know it. Awesome. Yeah.

Cory Ames [00:42:07]:
Final question, Alex. What's the best way for people to get connected with you? With black outside, where should they check you out?

Alex Bailey [00:42:13]:
Yeah, Instagram. It's the best way to find us. It's where we put our bread and butter. We just launched our summer camp TikTok. So if you're on TikTok, camp at Campfounder Girls is on TikTok, but Instagram lackoutsideinc and then you'll find our programs there. You can check out our website. If you do want to donate and support, just know most of your donation is going to go right back to kids connecting to outdoors. We believe there should be zero barriers to a young person experiencing outdoors.

Alex Bailey [00:42:38]:
So I tell folks that donate we have a gear library for kids that has everything from waterproof jackets to hiking boots, sleeping bags, tents, anything a kid ever needs to get outdoors, we try to provide it. We don't want that to be a barrier. And so yeah, it's really great. We think very holistically about our kids outdoor experience and so donations go a very long way to help that out, obviously, as a nonprofit. Awesome.

Cory Ames [00:43:01]:
Well, thank you Alex. I really appreciate you taking the time.

Alex Bailey [00:43:02]:
Yeah, no, thank you.

Cory Ames [00:43:07]:
Thanks for listening to or watching this episode of Big City Small Town. If you enjoyed it, please send it to a friend. Share it with a colleague, helping us to keep telling San Antonio's most meaningful stories. And if you haven't yet, sign up for the San Antonio Something, my weekly newsletter where I share things to do, places to explore, and people to get to know in this city. Just head to coriames.com to subscribe. Also, be sure to check out Monday Musings, Bob Rivard's weekly newsletter at BigCity. Small Town.com Big City Small Town is brought to you by Weston Urban Building, the city our children want to call home, and by Geekdom, where startups are born and smart ideas become businesses. Thanks again.

Cory Ames [00:43:51]:
We'll see you next time.