Calling all WildLink Alumni!

10.30.02

With two expeditions and pre-trip meetings in the past few weeks, I've had little time to catalogue all of the sights, sounds and people that I have met in this whirlwind of a month. In my second round of pre-trip meetings I visited schools in Bishop, Kingsburg and Turlock, clocking over 700 miles on the car in 3 days and at times, forgetting where I was. I would get funny looks from parents as I tried to recall where I was the you're going to take my child into the wilderness and you don't even know where you are now?! sentiment was prevalent. Fortunately for the students of the second expedition, their parents looked beyond my apparent disorientation and agreed that their kids should goon the WildLink expedition.

Once again, the trip was a success. I feel as though I am some sort of salesperson, not the cheesy type that must rely on gimmicks or deals to capture my buyers, but one that has a guaranteed product at an unbeatable price: free. In each expedition, I have watched students get over their fear of bears and being dirty for days on end, to be transformed into poets, artists and budding naturalists. Even in the most resistant, I have seen the acknowledgement of their precious items at home they had previously taken for granted (as one student in this expedition humorously put it, "a certain blessed throne").

}When I go to the high schools for the pre-trip meetings, I am surprised and appalled at the relatively few number of students that are there. In a school the size of 4000 (i.e. Turlock High School), only 4 were at the meeting! In this past expedition we had two returning students that had gone on expeditions last year.

back to journal index read my most recent entry

In these WildLink alumni, is the strength of our program. To recruit more students for future expeditions, we must rely on these alumni to truly be ambassadors of our program - with our website and success rate (I'd say 100% as of expedition 2) it shouldn't be an arduous task. In their ambassadorial role, the students will not only be sharing the knowledge they gained while backpacking through the Sierras, but also how the experience had affected them personally. As we continue to try to improve the WildLink program, we may look to these alumni to further our recruiting process for future expeditions at their home schools.

This expedition's team members were an exceptional bunch from around the state. By talking about their time in Yosemite, they could create a domino affect in the number of people interested in going on a WildLink expedition. The choice of going ultimately lies in the students' and parents' decisions and personal testimonies from previous participants can be the most powerful selling point of the program; if they didn't enjoy their first expedition, Maria and Jaspreet wouldn't have returned for a second time. I feel that the students' experience of backpacking in Yosemite must be shared in order that new people get the chance to experience it for themselves.

I personally challenge each and every WildLink student to tell at least 5 other people about your experience with the WildLink program in Yosemite. And next year, when you hear that we are recruiting people for an expedition at your school, that you take an active role informing those interested on your time spent here. Share your experience with others so that they too may have an experience of their own.

Jocelyn