UMD Class Holds Everybody Outside! Event

Last Saturday was possibly the worst day to hold a large event promoting outdoor recreation in Duluth. It was cold and windy, the circus was in town, all the hippies were at Leif Erickson, and those that weren’t took their kids to Hartley Nature Center for their Youth Outdoor Expo. Nevertheless, a fearless bunch (including myself) from UMD’s Large Events Management class held Everybody Outside at Morgan Park on Duluth’s west side to get kids outdoors and raise some money for the local playground fund. (And if you’re surprised that there’s a class called ‘Large Events Management’, you should change your major to Recreation - Outdoor Education or switch up electives).

Eighteen students in the class, plus a group of volunteers, took over the park on Saturday morning, setting up tents, arts and crafts activities, navigation challenges, and other outdoors activities for kids. And then we waited… Events never go as you’d expect and Everybody Outside was no exception.

There was never really a huge horde of participants; rather, families and kids trickled in throughout the day. A batch of skateboarders would come to check out the rails that Damage Boardshop had setup next to the Morgan Park Community Center building. Parents would be impressed to find that two or three volunteers were available to help teach their two kids how to setup a tent. Odds in the raffle were especially high.

It would have been easy to dismiss the event as something that didn’t go quite right or be discouraged by a low turnout or bad weather. But it seemed like no one in the class cared if we had 1000 people or 10 attend, when we took over the west side VFW for our event finale and after-party later Saturday night. Chowing down on pizza and drinking cheap beer, while listening to our professors’ band and raffling off the last of our donated prizes was a great end to a good day.

As I’ve traveled a bunch and written a bunch over the past school year, I’ve questioned a few times whether I was really enjoying these neat outdoors experiences I was having or if I was just going about them in this rote “I have an article to write and need to go somewhere this weekend” kind of way. Towards the end of the school year, it’s become more of the latter.

During Saturday’s event, the feeling I had throughout the day was, “Even though there aren’t a ton of kids here, we’ve created a meaningful event for a community that could use it”. The kids that came to the event got really excited and I’m guessing participation numbers won’t effect their memories of the day in years to come.

It’s helped me realize more what I knew already: deep down, I get more personal satisfaction from helping other people get outside than I do from being outdoors myself. It’s a bit of a sobering realization but one that I think will guide me well over the next year of adventures. I’ll keep wandering next year but I think the experiences I’ll be writing about will be those of others, not my own. If you know of folks taking adventures or have any outdoorsy story ideas, please drop me a line.