Team Wilderness: Connecting Jersey City youth to the outdoors

“I was shocked at how much you could see the stars. I hadn’t realized how much you couldn’t see from the city but could see from there. It really took my breath away,” said 14-year-old Cinthya Costa as she described her first overnight trip in the Delaware Water Gap with Team Wilderness. 

Growing up, Aracelis Hannah and Cinthya Costa never went on hikes or slept outdoors surrounded by nature. It wasn’t until Hannah’s mother stumbled upon an outdoor program flyer at a local public library that she even considered it. “Being out in the wild just wasn’t something that was part of my life,” said Hannah as we chatted over Zoom about her urban upbringing. 

Costa’s experience was no different. “We would go to the neighborhood park, but that’s about it. I don’t even know if that counts as nature,” she said. 

Their stories mirror a daunting reality in the United States: communities of color are three times more likely than white communities to live in nature-deprived areas.

After teaching high school history in Jersey City for 15 years, Steve Cunningham recognized that urban children lacked opportunities to discover the wilderness, leading him to create an after-school outdoors club at Snyder High School. Through that experience, it was clear there was demand for a robust outdoor organization that would allow youth from every Jersey City neighborhood to experience empowering outdoor adventures. He launched Team Wilderness in 2016 and today, the nonprofit offers programs that include hiking, backpacking, paddle boarding, and numerous outdoor activities in single-day and overnight trips.

Taking a leap of faith three years ago and joining the Summer Treks program was not easy for Hannah. “I was very reluctant to go. In the beginning, I didn’t talk to anyone except my sister.” But by the end of the summer, she wasn’t just talking. “I was hugging everyone and hoping to see them again. Team Wilderness really changed my ability to speak to other people.” Hannah has now completed almost every Team Wilderness program. 

“I remember feeling scared as I stood up on a paddleboard for the first time in the Hudson River,” said Cinthya about her adventures with Wilderness on the Water – a program that teaches youth about local marine life, how to conduct water quality tests, and climate change’s impact on local waterways. 

Team Wilderness is the only wilderness experiential education organization focused on Hudson County’s most underserved youth. When asked why, Cunningham responded, “It’s not always obvious to us just how much urban youth from marginalized communities are missing out on time in nature. When we think of what these youth need, our natural biases have us picturing settings where we expect to see our youth of color, and sadly that’s often not in nature.”

“I am so thankful for this organization because I know that I am not someone that you would normally think of being in nature, and honestly, it amazes me when I see images of me in nature in social media,” said Hannah.

As for navigating the challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic, Cunningham says it has actually accelerated Team Wilderness’s growth.  “It has put a spotlight on the need to get outdoors. But it has also meant skyrocketing transportation costs. Instead of taking groups in our 15 passenger van, we’re often charter school buses to allow for social distancing.”

There are bigger challenges that ensue from running a wilderness organization in such an urbanized environment.  “Understandably, not everyone in the communities we serve sees a ton of value in wilderness experiences. They have less history with state and national parks that were segregated until the Civil Rights Movement. Additionally, some of the grandparents of our youth can still remember when the woods were seen as a place where bad things happen. These are huge obstacles to overcome. It can mean discussions with parents about the benefits of our programs and longer time on the road for our groups when we’re venturing into the wilderness. But when you see the impact it makes on our teens it is all worth it,” says Cunningham.  

To achieve its mission Team Wilderness focuses on seven principles that together spell out the word ETHICAL: Empathy, Teamwork, Health, Inclusivity, Community, Adversity and Leadership.

“I started applying these principles in school and at home,” says Hannah. “Now, if I see somebody sitting in the hallway alone, I like to make sure they are ok. It has really changed my perspective on many things.” 

“I never thought I’d like hiking, but I love it. And now I am part of a nature photography club where we go on hikes and learn how to use a professional camera,” said Costa. 

The opportunity to hike through the Del Water Gap and the Catskill Mountains has enabled Costa and Hannah to play a role in ameliorating environmental conditions that negatively impact our planet.  “I didn’t know much about climate change. It is just not something that I thought of in my day-to-day life. But now I am like, wow, a lot of things that we are doing is messing everything up,” said Hannah, who will be graduating high school this Spring and is thinking about pursuing a career in environmental science.

Since its launch in 2016, Team Wilderness has served hundreds of teenagers in Jersey City, some of which have chosen to continue this journey by joining the organization as employees and serving as role models for a new generation. “Our goal is for the majority of our staff to be alumni,” says Cunningham.

But the biggest satisfaction is not in the numbers. “When you hike the same trail twelve times in a year one may wonder how our team could possibly enjoy it as much as the first time. But we do! When you experience it with teens with their utter jubilation jumping out of their chests it is truly something,” says Cunningham.

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