Experiential learning Environmental education Team Building Social skills Leadership Development Physical fitness cultural/historical understanding Creativity / innovation

Each of the SMORE Grant activities and natural area trips is built around the first educational goal: Instruction in arts, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics that connects nature experiences and/or environmental stewardship. Every SMORE class was created to include hands-on activities that demonstrate and reinforce STEAM lesson concepts. Each Natural Area Trip includes unstructured time that participants can "connect with nature" at their own pace and preference. Guest speakers are invited to share their perspectives to offer diverse schools of thought. A stewardship message is included into every class presentation. Opportunities to help preserve and enhance local parks and trip destinations are also included. We help with beach clean-up days, Serve Santa Maria events which help beautify our city, and school events to promote participation in all programs and events sponsored by the City of Santa Maria Recreation and Parks Department.

Scouts Island Packers Camp Ocean Pines CA State Parks-FamCamp-Butterfly Grove Dunes Center Circle Bar B Ranch Central Coast Kayaks Agents of Discovery

The City of Santa Maria Recreation and Parks Department has established several new partnerships that are contributing to the success of the SMORE Grant. Every partnership listed in past reports is still in place. New in 2024 are: Allan Hancock College: the faculty in the Recreation Management programs have welcomed Department staff to their class meetings to promote the SMORE Grant, encourage students to work for the City, and helped generate more college age participants in our SMORE classes and trips City of SM Utilities Dept. / Science Discovery: The Utilities Department asked to partner with us to co-sponsor environmental classes for youth and teens. The instructors come from Science Discovery, an agency specializing in STEAM lessons. Community Health Clinics: We have a new health and wellness partnership for CHC to offer support for their patients who need to lose weight and be more active to help reduce their risk of chronic diseases. They refer patients to the SMORE Programs.

When estimating your projected youth attendance, be sure to consider that sometimes there are several adults who want to join in the activity. The adults who elect to participate may be more than anticipated. While it is great to have their interest and willingness to participate, it can sometimes make the adult : child ratios quite different than what was projected.

Although California has been in a drought for many years, the last year did have significant rainfall and many of our Natural Area Trips were postponed or cancelled due to inclement weather. Having some back-up dates booked would have been helpful for some of the hard-to-book trips where reservations must be done well in advance. We adopted a motto reminding participants that planning outdoor trips requires flexibility because nature is unpredictable! We dress in layers, bring hats, coats, and sunscreen, because anything can happen in the great outdoors!

When planning classes to help prepare people for the Natural Area Trips, our attendance would have been higher at the classes if the participants were required to attend a class before the trip. A class called “Mammals of the Sea” really did help prepare children and adults for their 4 hours ocean excursion and made them better informed about what they saw and experienced on their adventure. To keep attendance numbers steady for the classes and the trips, consider making some classes required.

The Outdoor Recreation Leadership Resources Guide is well-written and easy to follow when planning the FamCamps held at State Parks. Despite having sent two staff to the training, we needed more staff to run this weekend campout for 30 people. Perhaps volunteers could be recruited to help during FamCamp so that there are enough helping hands. If not, we suggest including more paid staff in your planning budget to make sure the weekend is a total success.

When picking your dates for the FamCamps held in state parks, consider where your date falls within the whole camping season. Our first effort running this FamCamp was towards the very end of the season and felt like the supplies in the storage trailer were not all there, or in poor condition to the point they could not be used.

Internally we found it hard at first to make sure each staff person working at one of the grant events had their work hours documented. We eventually developed a sign in sheet brought to all grant-related programs and now have staff list their work hours and sign the document before leaving when their shift is done. • The travel industry took such an economic hit during the pandemic that every travel cost seems to be having high inflation. Please ahead for charter bus fees and admission fees that are increasing steadily.

Bilingual Marketing: Our decision to print all SMORE flyers in English and Spanish significantly increased our attendance of mono-lingual Spanish speakers. Our new Marketing Coordinator has also increased our bilingual social media posts on multiple platforms. More Partnerships: We are always on the lookout for potential partners and have added several more in our second year. By partnering with Vocational Training Center and Pathpoint, we more than tripled the number of adult SMORE participants with special needs. After some big challenges when we ran FAMCamp #1 at San Simeon State Campground, we sent three more staff to the FAMCamp training at Lake Casitas and completely reorganized our strategy. FAMCamp#2 was highly successful!