Yesterday, despite the forecast of showers, we gathered in the outdoor courtyard of Hostelling International New York City.

To close #OutdoorFest2018 we were teaming up with HI NYC to feature two service projects and then celebrate OutdoorFest with a grill-out and Sierra Nevada Brews.

The first part of the day included a campaign with Surfrider Foundation NYC to stop the Williams Pipeline and an invasive plant removal in Morningside Park with the Catrock Leadership Academy.

After some of the volunteers left (especially the ones under 21!) we broke out cold Sierra Nevada brews and hot dogs and got to hear from Ken Chaya about the importance of urban nature and Owen Foote on how to preserve our waterways.

"We should all be doing this, all the time"

*-Naturalist Ken Chaya on finding nature in NYC*

The rain let up around 8:00PM, just as the colorful lights of the hostel turned on. A relaxing ending to 10 jam packed days. See the full album from the day here.

Thank you to our partners and sponsors for this event:

A huge thanks to our parter HI NYC for helping us to host this event and our non-profit partners Surfrider Foundation NYC and Catrock Youth Leadership Academy. Shoutouts to United By Blue, Fjallraven, and Deuter for swaging out our volunteers and to ClifBar and Sierra Nevada for keeping us fueled and refreshed.