The Service Bus - Living the Outward Bound Values

For the past month, four North Carolina Outward Bound School (NCOBS) staff members have been completing wilderness and urban service projects, mini professional development expeditions, and spreading awareness about NCOBS throughout the Southeast as part of The Service Bus.

The Service Bus is not a new idea at NCOBS and actually has a long-serving history at the School, however, over the past several years it has gone by the wayside—the last one taking place in 2008. That is until instructor Caroline Feeney decided to bring it back after her own service bus experience while working at Outward Bound California.

The Service Bus expedition is an opportunity for staff and instructors to live the values of Outward Bound by volunteering their time and energy, as they travel by bus, improving the communities in which we work. Service Bus Members this year included: Alyssa Casey, Liz Bowling, Caroline Feeney, Addie Hurwitz, and a few others who joined throughout.

"The NCOBS community is often spread across the wilderness areas in the southeast with our students. The Service Bus is an opportunity for our passionate staff to come together and connect with a shared —to serve others and the environment. The Service Bus, like any expedition is about growing in your understanding of yourself, others, and the world around you. I hope this year's Service Bus leaves both the staff and communities we touch along the way more hopeful and inspired to engage agains the issues that affect our world today." -Caroline Feeney

THE SERVICE

Some of the service projects on their expedition included: trail work in the Linville Gorge in North Carolina with Wild South, sorting donated food in Asheville, NC with Manna Food Bank, picking up trash along the river banks of the Ocklawaha River in Florida, painting signs for the FINS Program at our Scottsmoor Base Camp in Florida, helping out at one of our sister school's (Hurricane Island) during its opening week at Big Pine Key in Florida, painting railings at the Dolphin Research Center in Florida, removing invasive species in the Florida Everglades with the Audubon Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, and working with students in Atlanta at the Urban Food Forest at Browns Mill.

OUTCOMES & REFLECTIONS

At the end of the trip, as with any Outward Bound expedition, the four Service Bus members took time to reflect on what they'd learned in those four weeks on the road. "On this trip, I gained new and important friendships, role models within my community, opportunities to grow and push my comfort zone, a better understanding of different bases within NCOBS, and a sense of gratitude for my life and my work," said Liz. For Caroline, the leader in getting The Bus going this year, she said, "this year’s Service Bus completed a total of 257 hours of service. We spent 204 hours with outside organizations and 53 hours serving at Outward Bound base camps. We met another goal of professional development with each of our three-day expeditions. We learned more about trail service with Wild South in the Linville Gorge and about paddling navigation on the Ocklawaha and in the Everglades. Through service, expedition, and everything in between, the members of the Service Bus grew in connection with each other and the school." 

Thank you to this year's Service Bus members, and to the organizations, base camps, and sponsors who helped make it possible. We look forward to continuing to see the project grow! 

Fall Is the Season for Educators

We all know about the “back to school” trope that surfaces every year as part of the rhythm of education-life in America, but for many teachers and teachers-to-be this year, it has been “back to the mountains.” 

North Carolina Outward Bound (NCOBS) is renewing its historical commitment of serving educators by offering short courses in the fall season allowing teachers and school leaders to directly experience the transformative power of experiential education and return to their schools renewed and recharged to apply it in sustainable ways. 

Over several weekends this fall, teachers and school leaders were able to step away from their schools and experience what William James called a “pattern interrupt”: to forego the usual patterns of work and home life and go on mini expeditions into the fall mountains. There, they dug deep into personal challenges in nature and the connection with other kindred spirits in applying the lessons of those challenges to their classrooms and schools.

Want to find out how you or your school can get involved in this program? Email Dr. Gordon Grant at ggrant@ncobs.org.

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