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Resource Report 5 - Wild Grief · Resource Report

• 0:00
  Music
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  Hello and welcome to Resource Report where we share with you important information about local nonprofits and resource organizations
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  that support the community we share, produced by Pathways to Agency.
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  I am your host Rainmaker. Today's guest is Megan Carlisle of Wild Grief, a nonprofit organization helping people navigate loss of loved ones
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  through hikes and campouts in our beautiful Pacific Northwest parks and wilderness.
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  On today's show, Megan will share how she came to work with Wild Grief, programs offered, and how to get on a hike or become part of the Wild Grief team.
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  We also discuss types of grief, how their bereavement counseling on hikes and campouts work, as well as how they are working to bring greater accessibility to their programs for differently abled individuals.
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  Music
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  I am here with Megan Carlisle from Wild Grief, a wonderful nonprofit. Hello Megan, how are you doing today?
• 1:29
  I'm good. Thanks so much for having me on.
• 1:32
  Absolutely. Tell me about yourself. How did you, like do you have a background with this kind of thing? Like where do you come from with this and how did you get yourself to this place where you're able to be comfortable and confident doing this kind of work?
• 1:53
  Yeah, so I have kind of a unique pathway that I got here. I used to teach permaculture and organic farming. I'm actually an Evergreen graduate. And so I have a big background in soil science and kind of organic agriculture.
• 2:10
  And I actually used that to get a job at Recompose, which is the first facility in the world that converts human bodies into compost.
• 2:19
  Oh, I've heard about that. That's, I think that that's amazing.
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  Yeah, it's pretty cool. And so I was the operations manager there and helped open the first facility in the world in Seattle, and I did that for two years and was kind of not thriving and urban living kind of that needing to be outside thing.
• 2:37
  Turns out to make compost in a warehouse, you end up not being outdoors very much.
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  And so, but when I, so when I was looking for another job, Wild's Grief is one of the few places that kind of grief and nature come together. It's pretty, again, pretty unique.
• 2:54
  So Wild's Grief was already existing before you came along. Yeah. Oh, okay. I don't know. Somehow I had this impression that this was all you.
• 3:04
  No, I'm somewhat late to the game. I've been working there for about two years. Okay. Monica's been working there about four or five years.
• 3:11
  Okay. So it was all started by volunteers and the first programs were, you know, started before they had ever hired anybody.
• 3:20
  And we've evolved, we try to evolve organically and moving at the speed of trust is one of our principles. So just not trying to get bigger and bigger and bigger for bigger sake, just really trying to grow to the rate when we can serve more people,
• 3:40
  not lose our soul, as it were. When you, so when you joined Wild's Grief, were you trained there or did you have training and grief work, you know, elsewhere?
• 3:53
  I mean, I recompose, I think is a definitely a training and grief support, but probably more acute around like, you know, I was working with people who were directly just suffered a loss, you know, last couple weeks.
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  So it definitely have a wild grief had a very different approach that I feel like participating in our guide training was only actually a couple weeks after I started.
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  So that was kind of nice to be able to, I kind of participated like I was training to be a guide. So it got a little bit of the view from that angle when I first started.
• 4:29
  And also, you know, the, I learned more all the time, I think I refining my approach to all of that and also just really making sure that all the guides feel supported in the nuance that they can come up with on the trail, because I think grief is something that has comes in so many different forms and shapes and also human beings are complicated,
• 4:52
  and just trying to make sure that they feel like they're supported and all that always presents new challenges.
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  Tell me about what you do with while grief. What is while grief.
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  Yeah, so while grief set local Olympia nonprofit. We do grief support services for youth and families and people of all ages.
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  We do everything that we do is outside everything we do is free of charge, and it's all really centered on the healing power of nature and peer support so that, you know, grief is not kind of a lot of the other things that plague our society like depression and anxiety, it isn't something that needs to be fixed,
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  it's part of the human experience, and really the best way to heal from grief is to grieve and so really our job is to create the space for community to come together and see themselves reflected and the people around them.
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  And, and then doing all that outside. It feels like nature can really hold our grief and nature. The process of just being outside and sharing your feelings feels like it can be held better in those spaces.
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  And we have a lot of unique programs we do a four day backpacking trip for teens and young adults in the summer, and then we also do a family camp out for families which is also pretty unique to grief support to really hold the parents and kids at the same time.
• 6:35
  And that program is like three days in tent camping and then we take the kids out during the day and do kind of age specific grief support while the parents meet, and then they come back together and we do kind of all family activities as well as just, you know, letting kids play in the woods and be normal and kind of just know that other kids are going through the same thing they're going through like even just play.
• 6:57
  And you know that the other people are normalizing your experiences healing for a lot of children. And then we do it all ages, high cabinet is what we call it which is just a monthly short hike around the region, which really allows for kind of tending to your brief long term and also
• 7:13
  like barriers and you can kind of be grieving at any stage in your process, and all that and then we do day hikes for teens and young and families, and then we also partner and do some Spanish language hikes as well.
• 7:29
  Wow, that sounds that sounds amazing. Very busy stuff to nature is so healing and grounding.
• 7:36
  Yeah, it's it's it's just the energy is just amazing. How did it start. Yeah, so it started with just a group of friends, local friends in Olympia who were they were all doing grief support, volunteering grief support programs kind of in a traditional
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  church basement style, and they tried really hard to get kids outside, just even in the little patch of woods next to the place where they're meeting and they found that when they got kids outside.
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  They got a lot more of they got they opened up more they were like more kind of natural than kind of like fluorescent lighting and staring each other in the eyes and circle, kind of like you think of as a grief support group.
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  And, and so that was kind of the seed of how it all got started and they were all really outdoor people as well. So they really saw that it just worked better, like the they got more done in one day on a day hike than they got done in six months of meeting every week or two, because they
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  really could kind of get more natural.
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  Wow. Yeah. And we also find that
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  making especially with like teenagers that they don't have to make eye contact when they're kind of standing side by side on the trail, and that has a big amount to do with whether they feel safe to kind of open up for sure for sure.
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  Yeah. How long has this been going on how long have y'all been doing this started in 2015 so this is actually a 10 year anniversary. Wow. Congratulations. That's fabulous.
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  So what, what, who do you provide services for. We're pretty open but the we really focus on people who are grieving a death of somebody important to them so I know with grief can come in all forms but we really try to focus on bereavement.
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  And then we are, we serve all ages but really probably focused on youth and families.
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  No, no particular demographic just like literally anybody that's going through something like this. Yeah, and, and, you know, we, we tend, because our services are free we tend to serve underserved people and I think we really center equity and try to make sure that we prioritize
• 9:52
  people who don't have a lot of access to grief support for cultural reasons are just like reasons. But I also feel like, by not by, it's not like a scholarship program like everything's free means that whether you're wealthy or, or, or anywhere in between,
• 10:10
  you're all kind of there on an even playing field like there's no, everybody's there. There's not a question about whether or not you can afford it. And I think that that helps you know some kids go and get a scholarship into a program and then everyone knows they're on the scholarship
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  doesn't.
• 10:25
  For sure, for sure.
• 10:27
  I want to ask so many different questions right now all at one time. Let's let's go with. I want to come back to scholarships but first, there's different kinds of grief like grief isn't always just when someone's passed away, you know there's there's, there's all kinds
• 10:45
  of grief, it's, it's a letting go of something, and that could be a person, it could be an idea, it could be a thing, a place, a community, right, you know what, how do you, how do you know how does that fit in.
• 11:01
  Well so, our high cabinet program is really, we really believe in it because we think that there should be a place where people can be kind of showing up wherever they're at, whether, and there's a lot of like clinical terms for like anticipatory grief like you're anticipating somebody's about to die and you're grieving it beforehand and all of those things are pretty like unique.
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  But in order to really serve people the best we can we really focus on like grieving a death, because we have to train our volunteers and we have to like create, you know, kind of draw the line somewhere.
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  So for most of our like overnight programs and stuff like that, we also find that peer connections really work best if people have a shared experience so if you're there, you know, grieving the state of the world, and other people are there grieving their dad that's you're not really connecting in the same peer way.
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  For sure.
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  For sure.
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  Tell me about the programs again.
• 12:05
  Yeah, well they're all, you know, we're trying to really create the space for kind of unique entry points so like our day hikes are about five or six hours, and they're usually for teens or families, and the day hikes, I think are kind of a low entry a lot of people who don't spend a lot of time in nature kind of feel maybe more comfortable
• 12:32
  starting there than going on like a four day backpacking trip, for example.
• 12:37
  And, again, I was saying the dayhikes kind of have a low barrier of entry that people who are really comfortable in nature, maybe feel better going on a multi hour hike rather than a multi day hike.
• 12:53
  It's also a really great opportunity for families for our family hikes we have to have, you know, all sorts of aged kids and they get to really like, spend a bunch of hours strung together in nature and allow for kind of parents to connect and walk side by side and we try to, you know, we facilitate kind of
• 13:16
  facilitate conversations and exercises throughout the day. But we also kind of try to take a step back and allow for people to connect with each other because that's part of the peer support some of the magic happens when we're not doing anything when people are just eating lunch and they
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  find the person they start talking to share their experience I think sharing it has a lot to do with the ability to heal is just feel like you're not alone in your experience.
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  And family camps, we do, we provide all of the food and all of the gear for free as well. And that I think really supports the families getting to really drop into the space and also a lot of them just report you know they haven't had a break, probably since
• 13:59
  they were, since you know like life doesn't stop, especially when you're a parent. And so getting all of the meals provided having all of this, you know we set up the tents before they get there so that it's really just like show up and be held in that space.
• 14:13
  And that I think is unique and also really like providing the space for people to be able to grieve and also like learn how other people, how other parents are parenting grieving children because I like to say you kind of when you're grieving as a parent
• 14:31
  you're kind of grieving twice you're grieving your own loss, and also the loss that they're feeling at the same time.
• 14:37
  Yeah, yeah for sure.
• 14:47
  But the, tell me about the teen backpacking trips again. Yeah, so we find that, you know, the, you can get a lot of work done in four days, because, you know, you might be at a grief support group for an hour or two but now we're here for four days straight you really can kind
• 15:02
  of tie all the threads together.
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  We have a theme of the, we don't do the kind of five stages of grief we do the four tasks of mourning by warden, and it's a, what is that.
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  It's, accept the loss, feel the feelings, make plans and adapt and change the relationship with the person who died.
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  We kind of like it because it's action oriented.
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  It's like there's something to do in, in all of it. And so we create our programming, the four days of the trip are kind of centered around those four tasks and so we do different activities throughout the day that throughout the days that are kind of centered around
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  those different themes.
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  And so it's like the, you know, changing the relationship with the person who died because they're kind of always with you, but they're with you in a new way and so how do you like, kind of, to go back into the real world you have to kind of, and reenter with like how
• 16:08
  have I changed my relationship with them.
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  Yeah, I really get that like after my most of my family passed away I found that I had a better relationship with them.
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  Yeah, a lot of reflecting there. So that's that's very healing. I like, I like that approach.
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  It's, it's active and moving forward, rather than the regular five stages of grief that we're familiar with, you know, the, was it, you have to, you know, denial, shock, Nile.
• 16:43
  Yeah, so that that's more of a passive, just it's something happening to you. This is the process you're passively moving through.
• 16:53
  Yeah, and it was actually originally created to about the grief of your own death, like somebody who was dying, and they're going to go through different stages. And so it's not as 100% applicable to kind of grieving the loss.
• 17:09
  And I also think that people, you know, people just need to organizing principles to kind of like arrange their thoughts I think too, you know, it's not that there's a one size fits all this is how you should grieve it's like really just kind of presenting different
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  frameworks and seeing what sticks.
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  One of my favorite things about our backpacking trips is that you know they're free and almost always people have never been backpacking. And so they have like this amazing kind of opportunity to do that, and also kind of in that same summer camp.
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  So, you know, the people that lead our programs, they're not your teacher, they're not your parent, they're not, you're probably not going to see them again and so there's like this anonymity to the group of people who come together that allows them to be really honest.
• 18:04
  And I also really believe in a lot of kind of like somatic approach to grief that, you know, when you're processing big feelings well when you're hiking up a mountain.
• 18:27
  So, so it sounds like from from just describing in context it sounds like it's not like one family group necessarily you have but you have like like okay now we have several different people who have signed up for this.
• 18:41
  How does that work. Yeah, so we, with our backpacking trips we do a little bit more of an intake process just to make sure that they're kind of emotionally ready for it.
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  We usually, we don't accept people in the kind of those overnight programs if the death has been within three months because it's a little bit too fresh.
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  It's actually like not considered like best practices to kind of hash all those things out.
• 19:02
  Okay.
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  If you have a traumatic experience too soon.
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  There's a time process.
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  It's like a little bit of a time process and but you know, it could have been several years ago because I think long term integration especially when you're a youth.
• 19:15
  You know, your dad died three years ago you're still processing it you know definitely, definitely things will just come up randomly something will hit you a trigger, you'll turn on the water in the sink and you'll look at the kitchen counter and bam a memory shows up out of nowhere and you're just like bawling your eyes out all of a sudden.
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  Yeah, totally. Yeah.
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  And so I think, yeah, the grief can take on so many different forms and it can come in so many different ways so.
• 19:45
  Yeah, we do a little bit of an intake process. We sometimes refer people to a mental health counselor just to make sure that they're kind of psychologically ready because there's obviously also a lot of compounding factors around all those things.
• 20:00
  I mean I think it's a little bit different for the two main programs we do our intakes for the family camps and the backpacking trips, and the family camps is really about trying to make sure that they're kind of a right fit with the group and making sure that they.
• 20:25
  We are prioritizing the first people to you know if we have a waitlist that we're prioritizing people who don't have access or that have are marginalized communities, and then with our backpacking trips it's really trying to like assess, are they, are they
• 20:41
  willing to do this on their own versus the parents which is one of the harder things in all of it because parents obviously really want their kids to get grief support but when we're out on the trail we really want the person to want to be there on their own and so we've been trying a bunch of different tactics to kind of like
• 20:57
  we'll talk to the parents on the phone in the other room while the, we talked to the kid on zoom and try to like get them separated to be like hey you really want to be here is something your parents are pushing me into. Yeah.
• 21:12
  And so the second thing with intakes is really the backpacking trips is really trying to make sure that they're there consensually and that they want to be there. Because if they don't want to be there that they're not going to want to be there two days in either.
• 21:27
  And so we're trying to try that intention to make sure, yeah, and really trying to, you know, make sure they're mentally stable and like ready to be kind of pushing their bodies.
• 21:39
  And then accessibility around like what people are physically what kind of hiking people are physically capable of is a big discussion for us and trying to make sure that as all people can, that are there can do it and that also that we're really
• 21:58
  catering our programs to make sure that it's accessible to as many people as possible so that's one of the reasons we like go to the beach because the beach is, you know, flat.
• 22:09
  And still beautiful and still rugged and, you know, definitely a camping experience, but not kind of maybe accessible to people who can't climb up a mountain.
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  Yeah.
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  And then we really like to, you know, we fit people in based on kind of the time of the trip and whether their availability but if we can we can try to like link people up who had kind of a similar experience.
• 22:40
  And then we do young adult backpacking trips to and young adult programs for grief are also pretty unique.
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  And then we find that that timeframe from people like kind of 18 to 25 is really, is really a.
• 23:01
  It's a such a unique time that people have to go through they're going through so much transition and so many life decisions and so much life path stuff that they really need their own peer group to hold them you know you're throwing them into kind of an adult based group when they
• 23:17
  are facing a really unique moment in their lives, kind of like a foot in both worlds.
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  And we love the young adult ones because they kind of lead to themselves they there.
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  There's never a question of whether their mom push them into it.
• 23:35
  Definitely.
• 23:37
  How, how, how do the young adult backpacking trips differ from the teen groups.
• 23:45
  You know a lot of the programming is the same but I think, again that kind of.
• 23:53
  I think the conversation goes a little further more organically, because you're.
• 23:58
  I think people, the older you get, I think you get that a little bit more tools and your tool chest to kind of process your emotions and so will kind of start a conversation, and they will, we don't have to kind of like check in along the way or like direct the conversation at all they kind of run with it a little bit further I think
• 24:15
  So the team group has a little more guidance. Yeah.
• 24:18
  Okay, okay.
• 24:27
  So, we have to talk about your high cabots virtually and in person. Yeah, so, I have it was actually our very first program it's been going the longest and we do them around the south sound area so Pierce Pierce Thurston and Mason County for the most part.
• 24:43
  We have five hours, and we really think about it as like grief tending, so you can kind of go multiple, you know, if you have a death in your life you can kind of go multiple months in a row and and allow for you to just make space in your life for kind of ongoing grief support because
• 24:59
  it's an ongoing process, there's no like destination and grief, it's kind of going to be grieving the rest of your life it just changes how cute it is in any given moment.
• 25:09
  So, the virtual high cabot kind of was as like so many virtual things was birth during the pandemic. Yeah.
• 25:16
  And so that's a two hour thing that starts with a zoom call we do kind of peer connection stuff and then everybody goes outside.
• 25:25
  And that could be sitting in your front lawn or go for a short walk on your own, and then everybody comes back together and kind of shares their experiences so we have kind of prompts that start, we like get together and lead and then you go outside to kind of able to
• 25:40
  take some time to feel your feelings and I love it because first of all there's no, you know, you can be in a wheelchair for example or alter abled and still be able to participate which is a big, you know, thing that we're always trying to kind of create more parameters
• 25:56
  around more accessibility.
• 25:58
  And then also you can, people can be there any of the work anywhere in the world so we get people out reaching out to us from all over, do you have a program like this in New York and we're like well we have a virtual program.
• 26:11
  Wow, you get international people at all. Yeah, a little bit.
• 26:17
  And I think also we haven't really found another, there are some kind of people out there that are connecting grief and nature, and, but almost everything we found is paid, like a paid retreat, for example, we haven't really found any comparable services out there for free.
• 26:37
  And we're trying to find people that kind of do that.
• 26:48
  Yeah, you briefly mentioned the virtual is helpful for the disability I was going to ask about that how you how you deal with, you know, have accessibility for disabled individuals.
• 27:01
  I think, you know, I think it's something that we're always talking about internally because there is obviously challenges about being able to take people out on the trail and to do that in a way that is really mindful of different needs.
• 27:15
  So, we are kind of always striving to come up with new programs that are more accessible and also get people like pretty deep into nature.
• 27:25
  And so, I hope to bring on more programs like that in the future.
• 27:29
  Yeah, for sure. I also want to know like where where do you take people and and you know that that might be something, you know, considering some like there are parks that have like blacktop paved trails for like good for wheelchairs.
• 27:46
  Yeah, where are you taking people.
• 27:48
  We've done some, we've done some of our high cabinets and places like that and we try to indicate on our website whether or not they're accessible, but kind of we have referred people there's a nonprofit called disabled hikers which is national now but has actually started in Washington.
• 28:04
  And we've kind of learned that there's a lot to what the information you need to provide people to know what accessible is just because something is paved doesn't mean that you can make it up a big hill, for example.
• 28:18
  Right, right. So I think we are really trying to capacity build the ability to do more of that in the future separate from just like telling people that there's paved trails or this is a gravel trail and should be.
• 28:33
  And accessibility is a lot more than just making sure that somebody in a wheelchair could do it it's like how much physically you know how far is it how what's this how strenuous is it how is there stairs, is there a lot of stairs you know like all of those things.
• 28:49
  And the more we can describe the experience before people get there the more they can kind of self assess whether or not they can do it for sure it's not always just wheelchairs you know yeah just like walkers canes, just different levels of locomotion.
• 29:06
  Exactly. And some people can walk on a trail but can't walk on over a log, for example.
• 29:10
  So really trying to. I think for us it's about trying to really describe what we're doing and let people kind of self select and then also know within ourselves whether or not we have the capacity to really tell people if it's accessible or not.
• 29:25
  For sure.
• 29:36
  So, who are your guides.
• 29:40
  I love our guides my.
• 29:43
  We're only two staff people and I'm one of my jobs that one of the roles I have is helping with the guides.
• 29:50
  So we have 35 guides right now, and they're all from all walks of life. We do a kind of January, February we recruit and we do a training in May, and they're social workers and chaplains and backpackers and moms and every single kind of
• 30:14
  every single walk of life. And turns out the people who want to spend their time volunteering for grief support programs are pretty awesome human beings so I think they're just a great collection of people but I, we kind of stand at this intersection between outdoor
• 30:30
  programs and grief support programs and so there's, there's a pretty interesting diversity of people kind of show up for that work.
• 30:45
  And sometimes they go get first aid certified to do that and go show up for training programs and all that and I think they're just a pretty amazing. Wow, that's, that's a lot of involvement so what what does it take again to be a guide.
• 31:02
  So we do kind of an application process we can kind of only have the capacity to train x amount of people per year we kind of decide year by year what our current needs and abilities are.
• 31:15
  And then so we do an application and interview process and then take people on and train them and then there's a little bit of like an apprenticeship process of, we don't send them out on the trail by themselves and we kind of get feedback as to make to help kind of support their
• 31:32
  training and all that and they kind of self select sign up for the different programs they want. And then if they don't sign up I text them.
• 31:46
  Tell me about the peer support training.
• 31:49
  So you know we, we do a two day overnight camping training at Miller savanna, and there's a lot of ground to cover, because if you know again everybody shows up with different kind of understanding so we have, you know, hike safety and teaching people are different
• 32:07
  processes, and then also just a team bonding and covering things like suicide awareness and mandated reporting and that kind of nuts and bolts and also just the basics of grief support and how to be culturally responsive and culturally sensitive to the very vast
• 32:26
  different experiences people have and so it's a lot to pack in.
• 32:33
  And then we have our first aid CPR certification. Yeah, so we always have wilderness first responder on our backpacking trips and first aid certified people on our overnight programs and we have a lot of our training is kind of about how close are people to
• 32:50
  first aid, you know basic first aid is, you know, needed on a day hike for example in the local area at a local park, versus kind of if you're out in the back country we need to make sure that people have a more advanced care for all that.
• 33:13
  What kind of feedback y'all receive.
• 33:16
  I think I really love hearing directly from all of our participants about how transformative.
• 33:25
  It is I think you know that really keeps the fuel going to continue to do all the work.
• 33:31
  And, you know, grief can really send people into pretty intense places, and not just in their own emotions but also in life changes and life transitions of, you know, maybe your mother passed away and she was the main person making money and maybe now you have to move
• 33:53
  or maybe you, you know, there, there's so many layers to what happens in death for the people left behind. And I think being able to support those people.
• 34:05
  There's just a huge amount of relief to get kind of tools on their tool chest on how to process those feelings and also get connections with other people so the kind of feedback about all that is pretty potent stuff.
• 34:21
  We've recently started doing really more interviews at the end, because apparently paper surveys are limited as far as what you'll actually like here from people, and I think, especially from the parents, getting to see their children, say these things
• 34:39
  getting to see their children, like connect with other people allows them to set their own anxiety about what this is doing, you know, how is this affecting them aside for a moment and get to process their own feelings.
• 34:53
  For sure.
• 34:54
  So earlier, we mentioned scholarships and tell me about that.
• 34:59
  Oh, so you know I was really saying you know everything we do is for free will never charge for anything we do that's a committed part of it. And I guess I was kind of just mentioning that for a lot of programs who do scholarships, it can still feel inequitable to, especially
• 35:16
  kids about how they show up they kind of know that they're the only one there that couldn't pay. And so it doesn't actually I think enter kids into some programs on a level playing field. And it's part of the reason that even though we know some people could pay, we want everyone to be there for free so that everyone's like equal.
• 35:36
  And also that the last thing you should have to worry about when you're grieving is whether or not you can afford for sure.
• 35:51
  Can you describe like how this goes about getting into having a hike and.
• 36:07
  We kind of have you fill out a little bit of an application and ask more for overnight programs we have asked a little more questions and make sure that it's the right fit for everybody.
• 36:19
  Where to go on a hike. Yeah. Well, well so for just a day hike, I mean just pack a lunch, you know, we pack lunches and we tell people to wear sturdy shoes so it's not a ton you need but for for the overnight trips it's just packing your own clothes and what you need is essentials.
• 36:39
  Yeah. If, if, say, if somebody like was just, they went hiking all the time and camping out all the time that was just a thing this family did, and they had their own gear, and they felt comfortable having their own tent and everything because it's like they're used to their tent.
• 36:57
  Would that be cool if they wanted to have their tent. Yeah, so we've occasionally had people on our backpacking trips that kind of have their own gear and we do an orientation and we'd ask them all to bring it
• 37:08
  beforehand just to make sure that they have what they need you know like that it's up to like our standard that their tents going to keep them dry for example or keep the sleeping bags going to keep them warm just to make sure they're safe.
• 37:20
  But yeah, people can bring their own. Okay. Their own boots and stuff like that we do make sure that they've broken in their boots because that can lead to a lot of blisters. Right.
• 37:29
  And get brand new shoes. Yeah.
• 37:38
  And tell me again about locations where y'all are going. I feel like I need a little more. Yeah, fair enough.
• 37:46
  Our favorite place to go is a goat rocks wilderness which is just about, it's just south of Rainier National Park. And it's, you drive up quite a bit and it's about five miles into a big meadow that's very like high alpine so it's very like a view of the North Gascades
• 38:06
  and it's kind of up in the above the tree line and have those kind of big expansive views we think does a lot for being able to emotionally
• 38:17
  like have that expansive feeling that nature can give you.
• 38:21
  We also really like to go to the beach, because I think the ocean always feels a little emotionally evocative.
• 38:29
  We also go to the, near La Push.
• 38:36
  It's up by La Push on the coast of Washington. Okay.
• 38:40
  And then we've been, we've also gone to the North Fork of the Quinault River and the rainforest on the Olympics for the backpacking trips and then for our family camp out we do Lewis and Clark State Park which is outside of Chehalis it's really accessible to the
• 38:57
  people in the, but the group campsite is really separated from the rest of the campground so it's really private.
• 39:03
  And it's this really beautiful old growth cedar grove where the campground is.
• 39:09
  And there's no electricity but there is toilets and running water which I think gives a kind of the easy it's accessible for us because there's running water and bathrooms but it really gives a good camping experience to not have
• 39:21
  Absolutely.
• 39:23
  There's no electricity around the fire and all that.
• 39:27
  And then our day hikes and our monthly hikes are kind of all over the South Puget Sound region we're really kind of focused on the South Sound because Seattle has so many more services for people than a lot of the other surrounding area.
• 39:41
  I think we try to make it so that things are within reasonable driving distance but still feel wild. I think that the more healthy ecosystem kind of the better for us.
• 39:55
  Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely the further from the city you get. Speaking of that, do y'all go places that still have Wi Fi signals or not?
• 40:07
  I think it's cell phone signals vary a little bit but definitely our backpacking trips don't have cell phones and the kids don't bring their cell phones.
• 40:17
  For like our family camp has a kind of low signal and it's really about trying to like encourage people to take a break from technology.
• 40:27
  But trying not to make major rules around all that too for kind of our day hikes and stuff like that people feel I think more comfortable.
• 40:37
  For sure, for sure and then y'all have like capacity to contact like emergency services and things like that.
• 40:45
  There's been a lot of advancements in satellite phones. There's actually a thing called an inreach which is pairs with a smartphone and you can text each other or they can text the main through a satellite.
• 40:57
  Which means that we can kind of give them weather updates and connect about what time they're coming back to the van for example but it doesn't mean we're chatting on the phone.
• 41:08
  Right, right, right.
• 41:10
  Yeah but we're always, we have pretty advanced safety plans because you kind of have those worst case scenarios.
• 41:17
  Definitely.
• 41:18
  Make sure the parents also feel like informed about the safety plans so that they feel comfortable to let us have their cell phone for several days.
• 41:24
  Absolutely, yeah, yeah it's like you know worst case scenario you've got ham radio operators out there for you.
• 41:32
  Something like that yeah.
• 41:42
  And what areas in Washington do y'all cover again, what counties?
• 41:48
  I would say it's like Pierce and Thurston, I mean we started in Thurston County and Pierce and Thurston are kind of like the biggest population centers but like Mason County up in Shelton and Lewis County is like kind of Chehalis down there.
• 42:02
  But really, you know, Western Washington is probably where 90 something percent, 95% of our participants come from.
• 42:10
  Okay.
• 42:12
  Wow.
• 42:14
  That's, that's some like that's some amazing work.
• 42:25
  So, transportation, what if it's difficult for people to, you know, like meet up. How do y'all arrange that?
• 42:34
  Yeah, so, we try to like, really think through all of the different ways that things to make things more accessible so we've offered gas cards to people who can't afford gas to get to our programs and covering parking passes with discovered passes and stuff like that.
• 42:52
  For some of our hikes.
• 42:55
  And for our like teen hike day hikes we do, we rent vans from inner city transit in Olympia and so we're driving them and so sometimes we'll do multiple pickup points so that it's closer for people to not have to drive too far to pick somebody up.
• 43:11
  So we've done kind of like, I was on a hike once where we had a little bit to come and Seattle pickup points. And then, you know, we kind of walk that line as far as like public transportation usually try to meet at a transit center so that it's, if we are picking people up in a van we can do that.
• 43:34
  And we're trying to, and you know you were saying like the further away from the city you get, that's a, we try to walk that line about if for our family day hikes people drive themselves, and we would maybe offer gas cards if they can get there and or like connect carpools and stuff like that.
• 43:50
  But if, but, you know, we want it to be reasonable for people to be able to get there and still, when they get there have it be a wild wilderness experience for them.
• 44:02
  Absolutely.
• 44:14
  Like do you schedule.
• 44:16
  This is when we have the hikes, and then, you know, oh now we have enough people to go on that hike.
• 44:23
  Or is it the other way around. What one of the biggest challenges we have I think is that everything in the Northwest is crammed into the summer.
• 44:33
  And so we have, you know, for example we put out our 2025 schedule to our guides to sign up so that there can, if they want to go on a backpacking trip they can know where their vacation are and where there is everybody's busy in the summer around here.
• 44:49
  And so we have to schedule kind of when our trips are in advance because we have to make sure that they're well supported and that they don't over cross with other things.
• 44:58
  And then, mostly, we've had trouble more with when does what's the cut off to make a waitlist what's a safe sized group to come off because we lost our programs fill up somewhat fast, you had to figure out a cap.
• 45:13
  We have to figure out a cap of like with the families for example there's a lot more adults on the trail so we can expand those to maybe even like 15 or 20 people, because some of those are kids some of those are parents, like how many people can we manage whereas I think on a teen day hike we might only have, you know, eight to 10 kids because when you get 20 teenagers out of the trail gets a lot to manage.
• 45:37
  That's a little crazy, yeah.
• 45:51
  So how do you get involved, being a volunteer or donating, doing a job?
• 45:58
  Wildgreep.org is, you know, the main access point for all of those things. Our guides are all volunteers we also have volunteers who come and do we call it a tending team for backpacking trips and for family camps.
• 46:13
  So the tending team at family camp does all the cooking and keeping camp organized and helping with our craft table, and then for our backpacking trips will weigh out all of our goldfish crackers and beef jerky and all that to get all the food prepared for the trip because backpacking is ounces make pounds, you know every little bit counts so we have a really specific food thing and then after they come back we clean up all of the gear and wash everything and all that.
• 46:42
  And then year round we do tabling and outreach and other programs like that with our general volunteers.
• 46:50
  And then you know we all of our programs are free but it's not free to put on so we're grant and donation funded so you can donate at wildgreep.org too and we really appreciate all of the ways that we feel supported to be able to keep providing this for free.
• 47:18
  On your website it says you're hiring tell me about that.
• 47:21
  I don't know exactly when we're going to air, but we're recording.
• 47:27
  But the applications are due January 15, but we're hiring an executive director, which is really exciting, it's going to hire my own boss.
• 47:38
  Currently, there's an ecosystem committee which is the group of the board that kind of operate as an executive director they're kind of steering helping steer the ship and we meet with me and my coworker Monica are the only two staff who are paid and they volunteer and connect with us and kind of help steer everything together.
• 48:00
  But after 10 years they're feeling a little tired of continue and and I think the organization is evolving past something volunteers can really hold in that executive role.
• 48:12
  Yeah, we're excited about hiring an executive director it's going to be kind of interesting it's a part time job which I don't think a lot of executive directors are part time but we've gotten a lot of applicants and I think the applicants are excited for something that's a little bit more flexible and all that.
• 48:27
  Wow, that sounds exciting. Yeah, yeah.
• 48:30
  We're all, we all work virtually we don't have an office.
• 48:35
  And I'm pretty impressed with how we make a lot happen with a little, we have a pretty small budget, and you know I describe all of these myriad of programs that we put on and it's, I think pretty unique for not a lot of nonprofits are very like bureaucratically heavy and we are just kind of scrambling to do anything a volunteer
• 48:56
  can do like getting the paperwork signed and booking all the shelters and doing all the background organizational stuff so that the volunteers can really come together to lead the programs.
• 49:07
  For sure.
• 49:19
  What else that you can think of that you would like to share.
• 49:26
  I guess that I think that grief is something that is so universal but I think we have a story in our culture that we're not very good at grief that America's Americans are not very good at grieving.
• 49:41
  I guess kind of our vision is that we can change that by really creating a community model and that there's nothing, there's nothing wrong with you.
• 49:50
  I think probably the universal experience with grief is that people feel like they're doing it wrong. Like, why am I just sitting here watching TV by, I should be crying or if I am crying I shouldn't, I should get it together and, you know, pull it together and I think
• 50:04
  or I'm mad at them and I shouldn't be mad because they, you know, they get it. There's all of these like shoulds with grief and really it's that everything that you're feeling is normal and wherever you're at in any given moment is fine.
• 50:19
  And that community can really, like sharing our experience can really help alleviate some of the acute suffering that comes with it.
• 50:32
  Yeah, you have some resources listed on your website as well.
• 50:38
  Yeah, I would say that probably my favorite resource to send people to is the Illuna Network with an E Illuna Network, and they have a search engine on their website that's really,
• 50:52
  you can say I'm a caregiver who suffered, who suffered a loss from suicide and they'll give you really specific resources. And those resources can both be like you know online resources as well as like things in your area.
• 51:07
  So if people call and ask us for grief support resources that's our main, one of my main places to send people. And sometimes if you send them an email and tell them more details about your situation they'll send you kind of more catered resources.
• 51:24
  But, you know, we're just one, we're part of a grief shed. It's like we're just part of an ecosystem of other people, other organizations that help support this too.
• 51:33
  So you do work with other groups.
• 51:36
  And one of our main funders is the Safe Crossings Foundation and they fund a lot of the grief support services in the, in the Washington area.
• 51:48
  And we see one of the other main ones is Bridges in Tacoma, is part of the Bridges Children's Hospital and they have a brief, that's like one of the main bereavement programs people get kind of referred to in this area by social workers and hospitals and stuff like that.
• 52:08
  I think the thing that I love about working at Wild Grief is that it really, it really transition, like my job is really diverse. I have a lot of, wear a lot of different hats and there's also a little bit of a life cycle so like right now up to the year.
• 52:27
  Right now I'm kind of refining our website and redoing our applications, it's all say 2025 for example or, you know, get them refine all of the process and then we do recruitment and outreach and tabling and recruiting our guides and our trainings and then during the
• 52:44
  program season it's just all hands on deck and getting all of, and shopping for food and cleaning camping gear and picking up the van and dropping off the van and like all of the kind of logistics of the program and then in the fall I do a lot more fundraising and grant writing and
• 53:00
  running capital campaigns and social media outreach and then in the winter we kind of like, what do we want to do different next year and kind of organizational dynamics and
• 53:11
  that is, yeah, so there's a little kind of a, you know, seasonal shifts which it feels like is very keeping in a nature based organization.
• 53:20
  And then, also I think it teaches me a lot about just how nonprofits work especially nonprofits who are trying to be a little different.
• 53:27
  We like to say we're a little bit feral, a little bit, not like your average, not like the nonprofit industrial complex.
• 53:36
  You know, it's a whole wild, nonprofits have a whole wild world that they have to navigate out there and we're really trying to maintain being a little bit of a different approach and not just doing things like everybody else does it.
• 53:49
  Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much, Megan. Yeah, it's so great to have me. Thanks so much for having me on the show. Yeah.
• 54:09
  I really enjoyed hanging out with Megan and learning about Wild Grief. You can visit their website at wildgrief.org. Go outside, go together, go through it.
• 54:22
  They are also now accepting guide applications through February 21st.
• 54:38
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• 54:43
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• 54:52
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• 55:07
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• 55:14
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• 55:18
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• 55:30
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• 55:47
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