Military Families Outdoors
Challenge
LBC Action partner Blue Star Families is committed to strengthening military families by connecting them with their neighbors to create vibrant communities of mutual support. Blue Star Families knew from its own data that the outdoors contributed to social and emotional learning for military families, but the organization did not have the capacity or the expertise to scale their outdoor-based programming nationwide.
Action
LBC Action connected Blue Star Families with Wilderness Inquiry, an organization that connects people of all ages, backgrounds, identities, and abilities through shared outdoor adventures so that all people can equitably experience the benefits of time spent in nature. More than 30,000 youth and adults participate in Wilderness Inquiry’s Canoemobile program, which travels to communities where families live. Pilot efforts showed positive benefits for military families.
Impact
Next, LBC Action brought the collaboration to the attention of Congresswoman Betty
McCollum (D-MN 4th District), who championed appropriations of $5 million and $7 million
to establish Military Families Outdoors through the Defense Health
Agency . The initiative - representing the first time the Department of Defense has
supported outdoor engagement for military families - was launched in October 2023 at a
canoeing event on the Anacostia River in Washington D.C.
Notably, in a 2024 memo entitled Resilient and Healthy Defense Communities, the Department of Defense recognized that outdoor recreation has significant value to military communities, pointed to the growing body of evidence that time in nature is beneficial to both physical and mental health, and established access to outdoor recreation as a metric for success.
Partners
Services
- Action Plan
- Facilitation
- Matchmaking and Compatibility Assessment
- Structures for Partnership
