Editor's Column

Guest Columns

Woods Wisdom

Notes From All Over

By: Bruce Vincent

“Being adopted and meeting the kids in class is one of the great experiences of my life” Mike Poulson, Washington State

In America today there is a large and growing resource linkage problem. Our largely urbanized culture (80% of Americans now live in urban areas) has lost track of where their ‘stuff’ comes from. We’ve all laughed at society’s perceptions that ‘milk comes in a carton at Safeway’ and ‘boards just show up at Home Depot.’ However, this disconnection between consumption and production is problematic for all involved in addressing the difficult decisions we face in protecting the natural environment while providing the products society consumes. It is especially problematic for those of us who live in, work in, love and manage the environment.

This disconnect is hardly one sided. The realities of living in inner-city circumstances differ substantially from those in rural areas and we often know little about the environmental settings of our urban counterparts and the basis for their thinking on resource management issues such as forestry.

There is a program, Provider Pals™, that is designed to address this problem. The project has one very simple goal: build a common-ground bridge of understanding between the culture of inner-city urban youth and the culture of rural resource providing environmental stewards.

The program has four major areas of activity.

Adopting a Provider

Urban middle schools are selected in which to introduce the program. At each of the schools, individual teachers in the disciplines of either science or social studies have been chosen to present Provider Pals™ to their daily classes.

In the fall, each classroom chooses a resource providing culture (farming, ranching, logging, mining, fishing) to learn about. Provider Pals™ pairs this desire with a ‘Provider’ who is introduced to the students via video, letters, photo albums, and the Internet. The students, in essence, ‘adopt’ the Provider. The Provider Pal™ program also offers teaching tools to enable instructors to teach about our rural cultures and the modern processes of resource management that yield the every day products consumed or used by society.

The exchange of information culminates in a one-day face-to-face springtime meeting between the Provider and his or her Pals. Each Provider will travel to their respective city, meet the students, and learn about the urban culture. Providers will bring their cultural work attire to the classroom to have the students ‘walk in their shoes’ and a photo will be taken and presented to each student in such attire. To conclude the program, Providers will offer the students a personalized certificate proclaiming them a ‘Provider Pal™.’

Cities involved during the initial year include Washington, D.C., Libby, Montana, New York City, Detroit, Little Rock, and Oakland, California.

Rural Students Visit the City

Selected rural schools will provide the names of potential students to participate in a five-day cultural visit with their urban peers. The program is structured to allow the rural students time to meet with urban students in a classroom setting, enjoy a historical learning tour of the city, spend time visiting a manufacturing facility, and share in urban cultural events such as symphonies and professional sporting events.

Summer Program

Students from each of the urban areas will be paired with rural students from northwest Montana for a week of fun and learning in a rural setting. In 2003, the summer program for over 120 students will be held at the Historic Raven Natural Resource Learning Center in northwest Montana. The learning experience will be built around visits to farms, ranches, mines, plywood plants, sawmills and logging jobs.

The Web

To supplement and complement the classroom and summer camp learning experiences, the Provider Pal™ website provides continually updated information pertaining to each of the resource cultures represented by the adopted Providers.

The Provider Pal™ program was successfully test run in Montana and Washington, D.C. and gained the attention of the media. The Wall Street Journal called it ‘the most exciting school initiative in years.’ Ford Motor Company agrees and has given Provider Pals™ a $1.5 million donation over three years to build and expand the program. With additional funding in the coming years, new classrooms, schools and providers can be engaged.

In a nation as large and diverse as America, it is important that we have an understanding and an appreciation of our common ground and our differences. In gaining this understanding and appreciation we must have science-based information that is provided in understandable form in excellent publications such as The Evergreen Magazine. In the process of bringing this information to the public, however, there is no substitute for a personalized, human connection.

If you are interested in supporting Provider Pals™ with funding or with your time, please visit our website at www.providerpals.com; or contact us at (406)293-8822; or e-mail us at ppals@libby.org.