A look back at 2025

Nature. Tending. Belonging. 

[Download our 2025 Annual Snapshot here.]

This is WYP's 27th year.

1,401 young people spent an average of 65 hours outside with caring mentors — 74% of them on scholarships. Here is what that looked like, in three words.

Nature.

At a creek in Santa Barbara's front country, a child who had never touched a frog watched his mentor Ruby crouch at the water's edge, completely delighted. He kept his distance. Then he edged closer. By the end of the morning, he was the one calling the others over. That shift — from fear to fascination, from watching to belonging to the scene — is what WYP calls nature connection. 

Tending.

This spring, our registration team made hundreds of phone calls to Bridge to Nature families, inviting kids to summer camp on scholarship. On those calls, they heard things that stayed with them — families navigating detention, adults afraid to leave home. So WYP arranged direct pickup. Kids were brought to the vans; parents didn't have to take the risk of stepping outside. Staff got trained on appropriate response to ICE. They held the logistics and the grief at the same time. As one mentor wrote this year: "When a child is stressed or anxious, I tell them to go find a stone that is as big as their worries. When they bring it back to me, I tell them — I will hold this for you."

Belonging.

At the end of a summer camp session, a girl named Sofia was given a moment to honor someone or something. She thought about it. Then she said: "I don't want to honor myself. I want to honor WYP for being my family." Sofia had been coming to WYP since she was small. She'll keep coming. That continuity — the same trails, the same mentors, the same rituals year after year — is what turns a program into a place where you belong. In 2025, that mattered more than ever.

Thank you for making this work possible, year after year.

We can't do this without you.