Giving money to a good cause is good. Giving someone else’s money to a good cause is even better.

The good cause: Kids in Parks, an initiative by the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation and the Blue Ridge Parkway to get kids and families outside more. (I know, every time I read that — or write it — I think, “Why do we even need to think of ways to get kids outdoors? Shouldn’t we be having to think of ways to lure them back in?” Alas, this is not the case, as Richard “Last Child in the Woods” Louv has clearly demonstrated. Hence, the need for efforts such as Kids in Parks, which among other things aims to makes the outdoors too tantalizing for a tike to pass up. More on that in a moment.

The someone else’s money: That would be the Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation through its new Inspired program. “Every day, North Carolinians are rolling up their sleeves and making a difference in their communities and the state as a whole,” says BCBSNC Foundation president Kathy Higgins. “They’re improving the health of children, families and communities that don’t have the resources to bring about change on their own. … We are inspired by the stories of these amazing North Carolinians – we think you will be, too.”

So inspired that the Foundation has identified nine especially inspiring organizations and is giving them $100,000. Or rather, you’re giving the $100,000 for the Foundation. Here’s how it works: Go to InspiredNC.org, click on “Stories,” then click on “On the Right Track,” which takes you to the story of Kids in Parks and one particularly tree-loving 4-year-old. Then, share this story via Facebook, Twitter or email by simply pushing the appropriate, provided button, and Kids in Parks automatically gets a dollar.

Why is Kids in Parks deserving?

KIP’s TRACK program, described by the organization as Dora the Explorer meets geocaching, is a smart way of luring kids — and their parents — outdoors. Currently, there are nine TRACK Trails in existence, including five in North Carolina (three are in Virginia and one is out there by its lonesome in the Black Hills of South Dakota). Go to any one of these trails and you’ll find a series of brochures to help enhance your adventure. At KIP’s flagship trail at the Asheville Visitor Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway, for instance, there’s a Hide & Seek brochure pointing out stuff you might otherwise overlook on the trail, there’s a tree brochure, a fern brochure, a fall foliage brochure, a “Buds Become Blossoms” brochure — basically, guides specific to this 1.5-mile loop trail that will make the hike more meaningful, more like a treasure hunt. When you get home, go to the Kids in Parks Web site and register your hike. Warning: there will be a test (“What did you like best about the hike?” “What one thing would you change to make the trail better?” “What was the main message of the brochure you read?”)

It’s worth it though, because after you register your first hike, you earn a free TRACK bandana. Two trails scores you a nature journal and with No. 3 you get a TRACK sac!

Since its inception in August 2009, more than 1,200 kids have participated in the TRACK program through guided hikes. The plan, over the next three years, is to add 75 new TRACK Trails and get at least 180,000 kids into the woods.

That’s an ambitious goal, and every dollar will count.

Like the one you’ll send KIP’s way when you push that button.

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I came to that conclusion this morning at the 10th anniversary celebration of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation. The occasion marked a chance for the Foundation to look back — at the more than 440 grants totaling $67 million that the Foundation has given health-related non-profits since its inception in 2000 — and to look ahead — with the granting of another $1 million to 10 non-profits, ranging from the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle and N.C. Association of Free Clinics to Access East and FOGGNC (Friend of GetGoingNC) Be Active North Carolina.

It was also an opportunity for me to look around and catch up on the latest news from a host of folks. Folks such as …

* *

… Jodi Hubble of Be Active North Carolina.
“Did I tell you I’ve left Be Active?” Jodi said, effectively killing my first question: “So what will Be Active do with its newfound grant money?”
Jodi told me she’d moved over to Susan G. Komen for the Cure’s Triangle affiliate as Development Director. I was about to comment on Komen’s phenomenal success, specifically with its local 5K Race for the Cure, when she trumped me again.
“We’re looking to add another race,” she said. “Our race here has become so big. We’re at about 25,000 now.”
A second race, she said, would be added in Eastern North Carolina, likely in one of the few communities big enough to sponsor such an event: New Bern, Greenville or Wilmington. “We’ be the first affiliate to have two races,” Jodi said.
Since its inception in 1982, the Dallas-based non-profit has raised $1.5 billion in the battle against breast cancer. There are now 140 races annually attracting 1.6 million runners and walkers. Pink used to be associated with Mary Kay (another Dallas institution); today, Komen has a lock on the color, which shows up on everything from dainty ribbons on babies to the shoes of NFL players.
Jodi is an appropriate match for helping expand the local Komen running franchise: in September, she completed her first half marathon, the Virginia Beach Rock ‘n’ Roll Half.
More on the new Eastern N.C. Komen Race as it develops.

* * *

While I was chatting with Jodi, Nell Barnes came up. I consider Nell my boss: She’s the Executive Director of Learning Together, the best non-profit, five-star, developmental day care center going. I say that with bias: my daughter and step-daughter both attended Learning Together and I serve on the Board of Trustees as secretary. Nell is Learning Together, an organization that had an especially profound impact on my daughter. Thus, I will do whatever Nell asks. This morning, however, she acted mostly as a conduit, introducing me to Juliellen Simpson-Vos, the new Executive Director of Girls on the Run (and, coincidentally, the wife of another of my bosses, Mark Simpson-Vos, my book editor at UNC Press).

During my final days at The News & Observer (sounds ominously Nixonian), I wrote about Girls on the Run, a Charlotte-based non-profit that operates running programs for girls 8-12. The girls meet with a coach a couple times a week over a 12-week period; the program culminates with the girls (and hopefully their families) running a 5K. Actually, running is more of a vehicle for delivering confidence and a healthy self-image to girls of an impressionable age. The local GOTR affiliate was launched in 2001 with 20 girls on board; today, there are 29 GOTR programs throughout the Triangle serving more than 700 girls.

Speaking from self-interest (that step-daughter who attended Learning Together is now a 7th-grade runner), I asked Juliellen if GOTR had thought about a program for middle school girls. “Actually,” she said, “there is a program that’s offered called Girls on Track. So far, it’s met with mixed reviews.”

Mixed, she explained, because middle-school is a funny age. Girls that age, she said, feel like they’ve aged out of organized groups, like Girl Scouts. “But they really need that organization.” To date, Juliellen said Girls on Track hasn’t been offered in the Triangle. However, she said her group is discussing such a program with the local YWCA.

More on this as news develops as well.

* * *

I felt like a remora to Nell’s shark, for not long after introducing me to Juliellen she introduced me to Wayne Marshall. From 2000-2006, Marshall chaired the City of Raleigh Parks, Recreation and Greenway Advisory Board. I was all set to pick Marshall’s mind but before I could speak he began freely sharing his experience. He told me stories about plans for parks that never came to be (the master plan for Millbrook Exchange Park called for a train similar to the one at Pullen Park; as of today, the park remains trainless) and parks that haven’t yet come to be. That brought up Forest Ridge Park, and that conjured an uncharacteristic frown.

“My wife and I were hiking there this weekend,” Marshall said. “The color, the beauty, what a terrible thing to deprive the people of Raleigh.”

Earlier in the decade, there was considerable excitement in local rec circles when plans for Forest Ridge, on a 586-acre peninsula on Falls Lake, were announced. The master plan released on July 11, 2006, called for miles of hiking and mountain bike trail, an adventure education center, ropes course, lakeside center, multi-use activity areas and an adventure education overnight lodge. That was in 2006: Today, four and a half years later, nothing has happened at Forest Ridge. What’s the deal? I asked.

“I have to go to New Orleans now,” Marshall announced. “When I get back, we’ll go out there for a hike and tell you about it.”

I’ll get back to you on this one as well.

Photo: Official words are spoken at today’s 10th birthday celebration for the Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation, held at Marbles in downtown Raleigh.

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