Do you think lizards can be friends?

It was a gray Tuesday afternoon when 9-year-old Lila first arrived at Wilderness Youth Project thanks to a scholarship from someone like you. Her shoulders were slumped beneath the weight of her oversized backpack, her eyes fixed on the screen of a hand-me-down iPhone clutched tightly in her hand. She barely looked up as her group gathered beneath the tall oaks in Tucker's Grove Park.

Lila had always been a quiet kid, but lately, the quiet had turned into something heavier. Her Mom, a nurse working long shifts, often came home too tired to talk. With no siblings and few close friends at school, Lila spent most afternoons inside, the flickering light of video clips and obsessively reading comment threads filling the silence. Even in the quiet moments, the world often felt loud, overwhelming, and lonely.

At WYP, things were… different. There were no screens, no buzzing notifications, no pressure to be anything but yourself. 

That first day, her mentor, a woman named Ana with kind eyes and a huge backpack, simply said, “We’re going to follow the creek today. Let’s see where it takes us.”

At first, Lila kept to the back, watching the other kids hop from stone to stone and giggle at tadpoles and water bugs. But as the hours passed, something softened. When Ana crouched beside a clump of sagebrush and whispered, “Can you smell that? That’s native California sagebrush. Some people call it cowboy cologne. People have used it for generations to calm their minds,” Lila knelt too. She took a deep breath. And for the first time in weeks, she felt something like peace.

Over the next few weeks, that one quiet moment bloomed into something larger. Lila learned how to build a fire with just sticks and harvest her own tinder bundle. She tracked the footprints of a frog through the mud. She climbed trees that made her hands shake at first, until she reached the top and could see the whole valley spread out below her.

She also started talking again. First to Ana, then to the other kids. Not about anything big at first. Just questions like, “Do you think lizards can be friends?” Or, “What’s that bird’s name?” But those tiny curiosities and conversations grew. One day, when Ana asked the group to find a rock that matched their feelings, Lila brought back a small, smooth stone and said, “This one feels like me. It’s quiet, but it’s still here.”

WYP wasn’t a magic cure. Lila still has hard days. There are still long evenings at home when the silence settles in like a fog. But something has shifted. She has roots now. Just like the grandmother oak trees she loves to sit under. She has friends who see her. Mentors who listen. And places in her community that feel like home.

Nature gives her that. Not in a grand, dramatic way. But in tiny, steady moments of connection. A frog. A tree. A hand held out to help her across the creek.

This is why Nature Connection matters. Because every child deserves a place where they can breathe, explore, and grow. Because even in a world of screens and stress, nature still waits with open arms. Because Lila’s story isn’t rare. It’s real. And it’s happening every day at Wilderness Youth Project.

Thank you for believing in this work. For helping us bring Lila and over 1,200 children annually back to what they were always meant to know:

That they belong here.

That the world is beautiful.

And that they are, too.