Common Ground Outdoor Adventures seeks volunteers

By Kate Stewart NEWS STAFF REPORTER

Common Ground Outdoor Adventures is a nonprofit organization in Logan that provides outdoor recreational activities to youth and adults with disabilities.

The organization enables individuals to participate in outdoor activities by providing adaptive equipment and support.

“By crossing perceived limitations individuals gain self-confidence, which carries over into the quest for meaningful employment, the pursuit of relationships, and active participation in community life,” the CGOA website states.

CGOA has various employees as well as local volunteers who are involved with the organization.

Anna Turner is the outreach and engagement coordinator at CGOA.

According to Turner, CGOA started in 1993 as a local branch nested under the Move United group, which is a national nonprofit dedicated to the promotion of parasports.

“Most of our activities are tailored towards individuals with disabilities because our goal is to help them get the boost they need to be able to participate in sports at the level that they want to,” Turner said.

The vision statement on the CGOA website states, “We want to do all we can to remove barriers and enhance people’s lives through recreational experiences, while reducing the stereotypes society has about people with disabilities.”

Turner said they have a group of about 30 core participants who regularly attend all of their activities.

She said their most common activities are rock climb - ing, ice skating, snowshoeing, skiing, cycling, whitewater rafting, dog sledding, camping and hiking.

“I guess really, if it’s a sport, we probably do it at some point during the year,” Turner said.

One of CGOA’s upcoming activities is their wheelchair basketball game on April 4 from 6:30-9 p.m. at Grand Canyon High School.

This is a free event anyone is welcome to come and support.

While most of the activities take place outdoors, CGOA has two physical offices, one in Logan and the other at Beaver Mountain.

“The Beaver Mountain program primarily hosts our ski program. We offer ski lessons and snowboarding lessons to individuals with disabilities who are interested in those sports,” Turner said.

She said the Beaver office hosts day camps during the summer which includes similar events they would do in the Logan office.

“It really transitions every year — we try to come up with new activities as much as possible,” Turner said.

CGOA is always seeking help from local volunteers, especially any Utah State University students who are interested in helping out.

Turner said they always need help at the Beaver Mountain office, so if there are any students who are interested in skiing or snowboarding, there is an opportunity for them to get involved.

“We send out a monthly volunteer email that includes all of the activities that month that we still need volunteers for, and so if there are students who are interested in volunteering, they can contact us and we can put them on our contact list,” she said.

Those interested can contact CGOA through the volunteer page on their website

Volunteering with CGOA is a great opportunity for students to gain experience working for a nonprofit.

“If there are students wanting to work in maybe social work or in other minority communities or in nonprofit work, this is a great opportunity for them to step in and see what that’s like, by involving themselves in an organization that serves those communities,” Turner said.

Additionally, Turner touched on the happiness that comes from volunteering in this capacity.

“I have also seen a large mental health boost in a lot of our volunteers because being around our participants, it’s just a really fun time and they are just always smiling and laughing. It’s hard to be sad when you’re in a group with all of us,” she said.

Because Common Ground is a small local organization, they rely on their volunteers.

“So anybody who’s willing to volunteer with us regularly, we start to rely on you like family and we call you up when we need you,” Turner said.

Students who volunteer for CGOA will gain exposure to the other organizations CGOA works with.

“We work with a lot of different groups including special education programs around the valley, veteran programs and just the general disability populace,” Turner said. “We partner with the Cache Valley Veterans Association pretty regularly, so if there are any students who either have direct family ties and want to be more involved with them, or any veterans on campus, that’s an awesome organization that we work with pretty regularly as well.”

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kate.stewart@usu.edu