Welcome to ICO
About the Sierra Club's ICO Program
The Sierra Club Inner City Outings is a community outreach program that is run by trained volunteer members of the Sierra Club with the goal of taking children from urban areas in and around Boston out to the mountains, woods, lakes, anywhere where there aren't buildings...
The ICO mission is to promote personal development by linking cultures, fostering respect of self and others, providing leadership skills, and an appreciation of our local and global environments through a process of outdoor exploration, education, spiritual growth, and sharing.
The outdoors can seem a scary place for children who grow up in the city. These trips replace that feeling with a knowledge of what it's like to hike a trail, to read a map and figure out the way, and ultimately to reach the top (and get down again!) It fosters a sense of accomplishment, increases self-confidence and enhances camaraderie amongst the youth and their group leaders. Beyond these immediate benefits, we are sowing the seeds for the next generation's appreciation of the environment and (hopefully) the preservation of open spaces through active recreational use.
