About 1,000 Maine teens hike, climb, canoe, snowshoe and camp each year because Teens to Trails (T3) provides grants to more than 50 high schools statewide to support outing clubs or adventure programs.

The nonprofit T3 is the legacy of Sara Leone, a wilderness-loving Wiscasset student who died in a car accident 10 years ago at the age of 15. That same year, her parents, Carol and Bob Leone, and older sister, Lindsay Leone, channeled their grief into something bigger.

“She would have loved this,” Carole Leone said at the second annual Bow Ties and Bean Boots fundraising event for T3. “We’re looking around and seeing people we don’t know personally, and when T3 first started we knew everyone. Outdoors people are special, and these are all outdoors people.”

“Bob and Carol Leone lost their daughter. You can’t be more authentic than that to create an organization from such a place of love,” said Nick Callanan, owner of Maine Outdoor Film Festival, which is also raising money for T3. “When I was a young person, getting outside was my church. … It’s grounding.”

“Without the support of Teens to Trails, my students would not have had a tea ceremony on a frozen pond in the Bigelows watching the most glorious sunset I’ve ever seen,” said Erika Rhile, the outing club adviser at Cheverus High School also known as Mama Wolf. “We would never have sea kayaked to a remote island and made a campfire in the rain. We wouldn’t have had Camp O-AT-KA all to ourselves, and seen the full moon rise over Sebago Lake. We wouldn’t have counted falling stars with 10 other high school outing clubs in Acadia.”

“There’s nothing like a Saturday or Sunday afternoon out on the trail with the kids,” said Ralph Keyes, Wiscasset High School Outing Club adviser. “It’s spectacular.”

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“It’s so important for kids to get outside. It gives teenagers a chance to see the beauty of nature,” said Gabby Chapman, an incoming junior at Wiscasset.

She saw a life-changing amount of nature this past summer, backpacking through Quebec for 3½ weeks with Chewonki Foundation, thanks to a Sara’s Scholarship from T3.

“That’s what Teens to Trails is about, in a nutshell,” Carol Leone said.

The $20,000 raised at Bow Ties and Bean Boots at the Portland Company will continue supporting T3’s long-term goal: to have an outing club at every high school in Maine.

Amy Paradysz is a freelance writer and photographer based in Scarborough. She can be contacted at:

amyparadysz@gmail.com


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