Sarah Cupery Ottley
Executive Director, Adventure Risk Challenge
The Basics
Company Name: Adventure Risk Challenge
Location: California (Truckee/Tahoe and Dos Palos/Firebaugh)
Founded: 2004
Full-Time Employees: 5
Products: ARC’s mission is to empower underserved youth through integrated leadership, literacy, and wilderness experiences. Our vision is that all youth will have a pathway to complete post-secondary education and to live as engaged, empowered community members.
Social: Facebook // Instagram
Claim to Fame: 81% of ARC summer participants have enrolled in a two- or four-year college, compared to 36% nationwide for Latinos and 46% for Anglos. Ninety-nine percent of ARC summer participants have graduated from high school.
The Culture
The best thing about working at ARC is:
from the board-level to staff and students, there is genuine and authentic communication, which encourages a culture of openness and understanding
When we’re not working, we’re:
spending time with our families and getting outside
What we’re reading:
we are reading the metaphorical poems of our students
What we’re listening to:
we are listening to Radio Ambulate, stories from Latin America, hosted by the writer Daniel Alarcón
If they made a movie about our workplace, it would be called:
Voices of Youth
Inclusion in the outdoors matters because:
the youth of today will be the stewards of our natural world; and everyone deserves to benefit from the beauty, solitude, and power of being in nature.
Five years down the line, it’s our hope that:
our students and participants today become leaders in our organization, in our communities, in the outdoor industry, and beyond.