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Thanks to significant support of Alamo SCI, nearly a dozen local boys from economically challenged families were able to attend Hunting and Fishing Adventure Camp this summer.
The camps, held by Cross Trail Outfitters - Youth Hunting and Fishing Club, taught marksmanship with rifle, shotgun and bow, all kinds of outdoors skills, conservation and wildlife management, and how to harvest, process and prepare fish and game.
Campers harvested big game ranging from exotic does and sheep to axis bucks and American bison. The camps were held on the Living Water Ranch on the banks of the Nueces River north of Uvalde.
In addition to hands-on, in-the-field instruction from a range of outdoors experts, campers also learned leadership and life skills, all in a faith-based setting. Instead of the typical vacation-type setting of most summer camps, the youth at CTO's camp are active participants, as if they were spending a week at the deer lease with friends. The approach is somewhat unconventional, but the results speak for themselves. Here is a letter from the parents of a camper.
Over the past year, SCI's sponsorship of CTO has enabled dozens of youth get involved in our hunting heritage, in a meaningful way, for the first time. CTO is a non-profit charity that offers year round youth outings, skills training, fellowship and community service projects. Kids who plug into the program are able to grow as sportsmen from novice to as far as they want to take it.
"Thanks to the active support of SCI Alamo Chapter, the number of hunters in San Antonio is growing daily. Many organizations talk about 'preserving our hunting heritage' but SCI Alamo Chapter means it. With SCI, we're not just defending our heritage anymore - we're actually going out there to recruit and train new hunters and plug them into the sporting lifestyle," said Greg Flores, the director of CTO's San Antonio unit.
To contact CTO, call 1-866-KID HUNT or log into www.TeamCTO.org.
Since July of 2005, SCI Alamo Chapter has helped fund scholarships for local youth to participate in the activities of Cross Trail Outfitters - Youth Hunting and Fishing Club.
The reasons all of us love to hunt have a lot to do with things much deeper than just harvesting another animal. Being a hunter is a lifestyle that draws each of us to a higher level of emotional stability, common-sense maturity, and faith.
If we've been hunters most of our lives, we can start to take these things for granted. Seeing these benefits manifest themselves in the lives of young hunters, however, can make them fresh all over again.
It's easy to show picture after picture of young people who have harvested their first animals as a result of our SCI scholarship support for Cross Trail Outfitters. We literally have dozens of them, and they're great!
This month, I'd rather show some "snapshots" of the things that happen in the hearts and minds of our youth participants. Below are excerpts from some letters that we've received in recent weeks. I think you'll agree that our youth education program is delivering benefits that go way beyond the outdoors, and that don't end with the outings we help support!
From one of our Apprentice Guides:
From a teenager on a recent ram hunt:
From a mother of a 13-year old who attended a recent hog hunt: