The Burning Passion

Our Passion:

All of us here at Ground Up Adventures love discovering and approaching our potential as people and want to help kids make the same journey. It's amazing what happens when one realizes what they are capable of and live their lives guided by that awareness.  Real joy. Fellowship. Community.

Our passion comes from working with our community and the youth. By getting them outside -- and sometimes a little dirty --- we bring adventure into their lives. Sure there are other ways to become aware of your potential -- but no matter which road you choose, each will challenge the mind, body, and spirit at some point. Since none of us have been on a great adventure that wasn't heaped with challenges  -- our programs work as guides and inspiration for its participants, to help them grow physically, mentally, and emotionally. 

And at the end? Joy, fellowship, and just pure awesomeness will always be waiting. In our opinion, adventuring seems to be a pretty good path to follow, and our goal is to lead others to that awareness as well.

 

Our Past:

We began as a small nonprofit and a climbing gym. While our climbing wall is no more, we now run numerous programs including our adventure races, summer camps, our girl's adventure racing camp, and our youth and family paddling lessons. 
 

Our Name:

As for the name?   "Ground Up"  pays homage to our founder's adventuring roots in climbing.  In climber's jargon - 'ground up' refers to the practice of attempting a climb sight unseen, or without any knowledge of the climb ahead.

Such attempts inherently present the biggest risk -- it is impossible to know what lays ahead, or if there is an option of retreat if things go bad. The flip side, of course, is that if adventure is what you're after, 'living--ground up' also promises the greatest potential for reward.

 

Nonprofit Status:

Ground UP Adventures is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit located in Grand Forks, ND.  Our official purpose, as reported to the good old IRS, is:

The corporation is organized for the purpose of planning, promoting, and organizing adventure based activities (including amateur competitions) for youth; educating youth about adventure based activities; increasing youth access to adventure based activities; and any other charitable purposes ancillary thereto.

Sounds so exciting, right?  But to be honest, what we do is pretty exciting.
 

Our Three Focus Areas:

  1. General youth programming. This includes everything from our paddling lessons and our adventure camp to family adventure races.  
  2. We encourage youth to embrace other adventure opportunities.  This is where our youth racing team, our scholarship program, and our young adventurer program falls.  
  3. We work with the community to increase access to adventure-based activities for the community's youth.  We work with other community and regional groups to create orienteering courses, youth camps, and family-focused adventures. Our biggest endeavor -- the river access and boathouse project--  was completed in 2013. We now have a fully operational program where the community can rent kayaks, canoes, and stand-up paddleboards at the Boathouse on the Red every summer!

We love to hear from our community!  Feel free to send us an email with any questions and to let us know how we're doing --and how you're doing for that matter!

Cheers!
The Crew of Ground Up Adventures