Provider Pals students, Marni Zaoner, Eureka, Montana and Shani Gardner, New York City, happily mugged for the camera on a TBC Logging Company site near Libby, Montana in the summer of 2005. Provider Pals is an award winning educational program designed to build bridges of understanding and respect between the cultures of urban and rural youth and their natural resource providers. The non-profit Evergreen Foundation has been a strong supporter of Provider Pals, also a non-profit, for more than a decade. Learn more at www.providerpals.com.

Provider Pals, the widely-regarded cultural exchange program that targets junior high age students across North America, is expanding its educational offerings on its virtual village Provider World  website.

Phase II of the expansion, which was funded by a grant from the Monsanto Fund, includes expanded game offerings in agriculture, easier sign-up procedures, a biddy list for players and other technological improvements.

Construction work on Phase 1 of the organization's website was funded by a grant from the Caterpillar Foundation. It includes several games that allow students to work with a computer program that simulates the outcomes of several different forest management and harvesting strategies. The goal is to teach students how active forest management techniques can be used to improve commodity and environmental values in forests.

The central feature of Provider Pals is a cultural exchange program that allows students who live in rural and city settings to learn more about how one another lives and what they value. Camp Raven, a restored Forest Service work camp near Libby, Montana, provides a summertime learning experience that includes visits to logging operations, sawmills, farms, ranches and mines. Provider World provides a web portal that allows students and their teachers to interact with one another all year long.

Provider Pals was pioneered in Montana classrooms more than a decade ago. Initial funding came from local merchants and forest products-based businesses. Major funding later came from the Ford Motor Company.

Provider Pals, which won the first ever Preserve America Presidential Award in 2004, was founded by Bruce Vincent, a third-generation logger, who now travels the world promoting cultural exchanges that build common understanding between natural resource providers and consumers.