Trails Youth Initiatives

What would our city look like if everyone contributed to their community? What if all kids finished high school and had goals to continue their education, productively engage in the workforce, and help others? According to the Toronto Foundation’s 2019 Vital Signs Report, racialized children, and those from single-parent families are three times more likely to drop out of high school and 55% of students from low-income groups did not apply for post-secondary education. What if that didn’t have to be true?

Trails' mission is to challenge and equip vulnerable youth from at-risk areas of Toronto to become contributing members of the community. Our goal is to instill practical skills, relevant knowledge, and the self-confidence to use them. Through outdoor skill development, mentorship, high school credits, bursaries, and job opportunities, we enhance the lives of our participants, their families, and the greater community. 100% of Trails graduates complete high school and 72% pursue post-secondary education.

The Four Seasons, Four Years, For Life program focuses on fostering community, emotional intelligence, and self-knowledge through outdoor experiential education. We augment students’ traditional schooling with intentional community building, conscious challenge, and lifelong support, in order to position them for success.

Participants come to Trails for two weeks in the summer and one weekend throughout the school year, for at least four years. In this time, Trails emphasizes growing and strengthening skills such as non-violent communication, conflict resolution, leadership, critical thinking, goal setting, stress management, and reflection. With a focus on transference, participants build a positive engagement with the community, the outdoors, their peers, and their authentic selves. They emerge from the program as involved and connected members of the community.