Featured Member

 

Our winter Featured Member is John Loo. John joined OWAC in 2006 and spends his days worrying about the Internet, social networking, and what it means to outdoor journalism.

He conquers writer's block by

  1. Typing out spontaneous thoughts on the topic
  2. Doing something else for a while (could be writing about something else, but usually involves something visual)
  3. Coming back, reviewing/reorganizing (1), then trying again
  4. Repeating 1-3 as needed.

John's favorite words? arcane, visceral

"I often fish offshore by myself in my 18’ skiff, usually launching at night. When people tell me I’m foolish, I tell them this story:

When I was 8, my Dad took a year’s leave of absence from corporate America to work with the UN. We were stationed in Iraq, in a little agricultural town call Abu Ghraib. There was no prison back in 1963, but we did manage to witness the coup d’etat that put the Baath party in power. Who knew they had so many guns at a US Embassy?

At the end of the year, Dad decided it would be fun to drive from Baghdad to Paris before we came home. Dad packed Mom, my sister (11), me (8), and my brother (6) into our ’62 Corvair (see Ralph Nader’s book “Unsafe at Any Speed”), and we took off for the City of Lights.

We passed through Jordan (where Dad was nearly shot for taking pictures of the Israeli side of the Jerusalem Wall), Lebanon, Turkey (where border guards took Mom and Dad away at gunpoint for questioning), and Greece (where the car broke down in the backcountry). We took a ferry from Athens to Rome (where we nearly had a head-on collision near the Forum); then made our way up the Italian peninsula through Switzerland and into France.

Foolish? Maybe, but it’s not my fault - I get it from my Dad."


You can find his work at: 

Beyond The Breakwater

Ocean Skiff Journal

Outdoor Outreach

Each year through its Outdoor Outreach program OWAC provides a number of mini-grants ranging from $250 to $500 to registered California non-profit,outdoor-oriented groups.

These grants are intended to help fund specific projects to protect, defend, support and/or improve the atmosphere and enjoyment of the outdoors for the people of the State of California.

Recent Outdoor Outreach grant recipients include:

  • Solano Land Trust -- To be used for their Rush Ranch Nature Center. The Nature Center is located on a 1200-acre working ranch adjacent to the Suisun Marsh. The Center is used for docent-led school programs, an equestrian carriage driving program for the disabled, a Nature Series of talks, and through a number of interpretive exhibits that explain ranch history, Patwin Native Americans, and natural resources. An estimated 10,000 people per year visit the Rush Ranch.     
  • Access Adventures -- To provide folding cots for people with disabilities that cannot camp on the ground. The organization takes four wilderness adventure trips per year to remote areas of California: Los Padres Forest, Fort Hunter-Liggett, Lassen/Plumas County, Humboldt County and the Sierra’s. They take people with mobility challenges (including volunteers that are disabled) and at-risk-youth on these trips. In addition, they invite local people with disabilities to join on the rides.
  • Y explore Yosemite Adventures -- To purchase camera equipment for their outreach photography program. The program teaches photography to disadvantaged inner city youth in the setting of Yosemite National Park. The program is held in conjunction with Inner City Outings (ICO) and under the umbrella of the Sierra Club Foundation.
  • Kaweah Fly Fishers -- To be used in conjunction with the Mickey Powell Memorial Foundation for the Trout in the Classroom program at the Three Rivers Union Elementary/Middle School. Various classroom resources, including DF&G approved curriculum materials, will be purchased.
  • John Garcia Foundation--To purchase supplies needed to take students into the field, i.e., day packs, notepads and teaching materials.
  • Lopez Lake Kids' Fishing Clinic--To purchase approximately two years worth of supplies needed for free fishing clinics at Lopez Lake.
  • Tiburon Salmon Institute, Tiburon, CA--To purchase testing equipment used by children to test the water in local streams.
  • UPSAC Goleta Pier Angler Center--To provide funding for the California Fishing Passport Program (two years) and additional rod and reel purchases to use with the free fishing clinics.
  • Acorn Soupe--To be used for youth program to connect kids in the Napa and Sonoma area with nature projects.
  • Yosemite Outdoor Adventures(educational arm of Yosemite Association)—To help publish a course catalog on the various programs they offer.

To apply for an Outdoor Outreach Grant, print and complete the application and send to Ken Jones, Outdoor Outreach Chair, 3317 Richert Ave., Fresno, CA 93726.