Having the chance to be a kid again, and support your local community!

It’s that time of year again! Nevada Outdoor School’s AmeriCorps program is getting ready to celebrate the 4^th Annual MLK Day of Service Dodgeball Tournament! The tournament is a collaborative effort between members serving rural Nevada at various host sites across the state. This year’s tournament will be on January 13^th, 2018 at the Winnemucca Junior High School. Each year we, the AmeriCorps members, select a local non-profit that could use some support and donate all profits raised to that organization. This year we selected Project AWARE as our recipient! 
Project AWARE (Advancing Wellness And Resilience in Education) is a non-profit through the Family Support Center that provides mental health services to children between the ages of 4-18 in Humboldt County. Through Project AWARE, kids receive therapy sessions during crisis, traumatic event, or thoughts of suicide. These services are free of charge to the children and their families. With these therapy sessions, the children go through a natural, self-guided, self-healing process. Currently, 451 children have benefited from using the free mental health services provided through Project AWARE.



Before all the fun begins, there is a great deal of preparation involved. We have to agree on a non-profit to donate the funds, create and print flyers including: time, location, rules, and team registration forms as well as collect donations for our prizes. All of us members then divide the tasks to be able to conquer as much as possible to get the best results. It may seem like not much to do, but once all laid out on the table there is a lot of preparation needed for an event like this. This year we are very honored to have our state commissioner join us for our event! Each year we hope to increase our profits from the previous year and with this being the largest number of members for the event, we are projecting to do just that.

Since this is my first term as a member, I am very honored and excited to host such a fun and unique event! Coming from Buffalo, NY I remember playing dodgeball in school as a child. (Who doesn’t though?!?!) It was a great way to have fun with friends, meet new people, and stay out of trouble. With this event, I hope everyone gets to experience those same feelings; enjoy raising money for a great cause and get out of the house during the winter months. 

We hope to see you there!

Happy Trails!


-Allana