On Fire and Flexibility - The Inaugural Birthright America Trip Is a Week Away!

     After approximately ten months of planning, and just a few stumbling blocks along the way, we will take our first group of students to explore a few of our country's magnificent National Parks beginning next Friday, August 10th.  While we will certainly explore Joshua Tree and Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks, our final intended destination - Yosemite National Park - currently looks something like this...

Current view of Yosemite Falls from the Yosemite Conservancy webcam

Birthright America was founded with the mission to enable students from financially underprivileged families to explore our country's National Parks and also to learn about them.  Ms. Cynthia Hori, the science teacher who will accompany us on our inaugural trip, has provided the group with a chance to learn about The Ecology of Fire that may cause us to have to make a change to our itinerary if the Ferguson Fire that has been raging since July 13th is not contained soon.  I encourage you to check out her lesson to learn a great deal more about the importance of these headline grabbing fires than you may have ever known.


On a beautiful day, Yosemite looks a bit like the photograph below, taken by Cynthia Hori on a previous trip to the magnificent park, so it is easy to understand why the fire has been devastating to so many, claiming the lives of two firefighters and injuring many more who are attempting to contain it.

While we are reluctant to make a final decision to cancel our visit to Yosemite, we are equally concerned about bringing students into an area with such poor air quality.   Therefore, we find ourselves checking several times a day the National Park Service's website for information regarding the current state of the park and the fire that threatens it.

Meanwhile, we continue to provide learning opportunities for the students.  In our virtual Google classroom meet students in San Juan Capistrano, a science teacher in Utah and a humanities teacher in Florida.  In addition to our recent science lessons, we have learned about John Muir, discussed some of our favorite nature themed poetry, and analyzed why some citizenship ceremonies take place in National Parks.  We will all meet up in person exactly one week from today, when we have one final evening meeting with the students' parents and go over their packing list one last time.  On Friday, August 10th, we will head out to Joshua Tree at sunset and the Sky's the Limit Observatory for a preview of the Perseid Meteor Shower.  After the following morning in the park, we will head to Sequoia and Kings Canyon, where students will hike, paint, take photographs and learn about the mighty sequoia trees.

Whether we will be able to experience Yosemite on this trip remains to be seen.  Safety is, of course, our first priority, so we will opt for an exploration of the Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park and an extra day in and around Cannery Row, learning about John Steinbeck, and Monterey, where we will visit the famed Monterey Bay Aquarium, if time spent in Glacier Bay and Mariposa Grove does not appear to be in the stars for this trip.

An August star chart to help the students decipher the sky above them.

To share the excitement, please follow us on Instagram and Facebook, where we will post regularly during the trip.  We will also share students' words and images, as many of them experience these national treasures for the very first time.  We look forward to sharing with you all our adventures!

What's in a Name?

As Shakespeare once famously said, and I paraphrase, a nonprofit by any other name still fulfills its mission.

In the past several months, the first of 2018, several changes have occurred for Birthright America, but its name has not yet been one of them.  First, after an unexpected change in the leadership team of Breakthrough Miami caused them to have to delay their trip with us, we partnered with Breakthrough San Juan Capistrano.

Next, with our students now coming from California, a shift from Yellowstone and Grand Teton to Sequoia, Kings Canyon, Joshua Tree, and Yosemite, the great national parks within the state of California, became a natural decision for this inaugural trip.

Finally, with our new partners, a change in date from June to August became essential.  Details about our August trip can be found on our website.

These shifts have all been exciting, allowing me to meet and work with the wonderful team at Breakthrough SJC and their amazing students, who have just completed the application process for the trip.

As we've navigated these changes during the past three months, I have had the chance to have many conversations with potential sponsors, donors and applicants, and I've begun to notice some common questions about the name of our organization, which leads me to today's blog post.

While Birthright America has absolutely no connection with Birthright Israel, aside from a similar desire to provide travel opportunities for young people, there are some who mistakenly believe the two organizations are related.  We are not.  In fact, Birthright America has no religious affiliation whatsoever.  Over the coming years, we hope to bring students from all different backgrounds to explore America's national parks.

The other question some have had was whether we are connected to any movements regarding citizenship and immigration.  Again, we are not.

Birthright America was founded on a basic principle - that young people living in America, regardless of their financial resources, should have the opportunity to visit and explore the national parks that have been protected and preserved for the appreciation and enjoyment of us all.  When I chose the name, I was thinking of the following definition of the word birthright - "a natural or moral right, possessed by everyone."   Since enjoying the national parks in America is supposed to be just such a right, I chose the name, along with the tag line that "America's best idea just got better," as a reference to Ken Burns' wonderful documentary about the history of our national park system.

In recent months, I have considered changing the name to something that might cause less confusion, but I've yet to settle on something I like better.  Still, I'm certainly open to suggestions!

Meanwhile, I've started a Go Fund Me campaign to spread the word further about our little nonprofit and its big mission with the hopes that the more people who learn about us, the more people will want to do their small part to help provide opportunities for children who otherwise wouldn't be able to explore these parks the chance to do so.  The good news is that the campaign is trending, with over 81 shares on Facebook alone in just a single day.  The disappointing news is that despite all those shares, only six people have donated, all of whom have donated in the past.

What would make this campaign a huge success in my estimation is if new donors would show their support for the idea and for the students who will be heading to Yosemite this August.  No donation should be considered too small.  Consider today Minimum wage Monday and donate $7.25 (the national minimum wage) or $11.00 (the minimum wage in California).  This week there could be $10 Tuesday,  Whatever Feels Right Wednesday, $1,000 Thursday, and $50 Friday.  The amount matters far less than your support does.

So... what's in a name?  I hope not the difference between your willingness to donate or not.  After all, your financial support, regardless of the amount, smells sweet, indeed.