The Basics

Company Name: EverWild
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Founded: 2016
Full-Time Employees: 1
Services: Nature Immersion Programming for Children and Families
Social: Instagram
Claim to Fame: EverWild has expanded children’s access to the outdoors and has increased the time they spend in nature from an average of 7min per week to 10 hrs/week for 10 mo/year.

The Culture

Demographics (Optional):

100% of officers are women, 33% of officers are non-binary, 30% of board members are Men, 70% of board members are women,  10% of board members are non-binary, 100% of employees are women, 13% of employees are nonbinary.

The best thing about working at Everwild is:

Providing mentorship to children in nature and being able to witness them develop meaningful connections and relationships with the Earth. This transformative time at EverWild has deepened children’s social emotional, well-being, and personal relationships with others and themselves; and has established a relationship between the child and nature in which the child cares for the environment and takes initiative to care for it both during and out of time spent at EverWild.

When we’re not working, we’re:

Talking about work and strategizing ways to create a more meaningful impact on our community while taking action to advocate for children’s rights, the protection of wild spaces, and the nature connection movement. We also seek to find balance and fill our cup with adventure in the outdoors so that we can be better mentors (and have adventures stories) when we return to nature with the kids. Our mentors enjoy backpacking in the backcountry, surfing, skateboarding, snowboarding/skiing, mushroom hunting, foraging, birding, mountain biking, camping, running, climbing, kayaking, sailing, gardening, composting, and wandering on and off our local trails.

What we’re reading:

Coyotes Guide to Mentoring in Nature, White Fragility, Braiding Sweetgrass, Home Grown (adventures in parenting off the beaten path), Patagonia’s Grassroots Tools for Activists.

What we’re listening to:

The Yikes Podcast

Inclusion in the outdoors matters because:

Universal and equitable access to nature, clean air, and clean water is fundamental to our health, our children's health, and the health of our communities. Until we have done the work to dismantle racism and systems of oppression to create safe communities, there cannot be equitable access to the benefits of nature. 

According to the 2019 Outdoor Industry Participation Report, black individuals have made up roughly 8% of Americans who recreate outdoors since 2013 while over 70% consisted of white folx. The study identified running as the primary outdoor activity for all ethnic groups with the exception of white folx who participated more often in hiking. Although youth participation has been declining, those under 18 still made up the highest percentage of participants in each ethnic group. 

Five years down the line, it’s our hope that:

The outdoor industry including environmental education and outdoor education institutions will be seen as an inclusive space where people of color feel welcomed, safe, and encouraged to experience the benefits of time spent in nature. Our hope for EverWild is that we will be mentoring an increased number of children of color in nature and expanding the average amount of time they spend in nature by directly immersing them in wild spaces. We also hope to represent marginalized communities in leadership and mentorship positions by hiring people of color and include them in decision making/board positions.

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