It was supposed to be a hot July day. You know, one of those hot and muggy summer days where you hit the snooze bar 4 times and once you finally get out of bed you just want to put a cold rag on your face. But it wasn’t. So 28 climbers jumped out of bed early on July 11th, 2009 and headed down the Number #1 climber owned boulderfield in the U.S. (voted 2 years running) and helped to keep the Boat Rock Preserve spic and span clean for others to enjoy.
Team Boat Rock kicks in at TeamWorks.

 

First Place - Escalade climbing team - Kennesaw, Georgia
This year the Escalade climbing team takes top spot in the 2008 TeamWorks competition. They hosted three Adopt-a-Crag events that drew 156 volunteers and 477 volunteer hours. At their largest event, the Little River Canyon Cleanup, 93 volunteers attended, making it the largest TeamWorks Adopt-a-Crag event of the year. Escalade will be rewarded with the Golden Toothbrush Award and a cash grant prize of $2,000 dollars to put toward their program.

The fall of 2008 had Access Fund’s Grassroots Coordinator, Amy Ansari, wide-eyed as she plowed through stacks of TeamWorks scorecards, tallying the totals for the Access Fund’s inaugural year of the TeamWorks program. The winning team would not only get a cash grant of $2,000 to put toward their climbing program, but serious bragging rights for stewardship efforts at their local crags.  

The team that came out on top, was team Escalade of Kennesaw, Georgia. The Escalade team took to this competition, which is judged by total volunteer hours spent hosting or participating in Access Fund Adopt-a-Crag events, like they take to climbing itself – with vengeance. The kids hosted three events that drew 156 volunteers, who contributed a total of 477 volunteer hours to local conservation and stewardship.

When asked what the defining moment of the TeamWorks experience was for his team, Coach Chris Sierzant commented, “The looks on their faces when they saw over 90 volunteers show up for the Little River Canyon Adopt-a-Crag. They definitely had smiles on their faces when they realized how big of a difference they could make in the community.”

According to Chris, Little River Canyon has been a well-kept secret by the locals for a long time, which  wasn’t doing the area any favors. “The place was trashed,” says Sierzant, “Not enough people knew or cared about it and the park system wasn’t getting funding to clean it up. The Rangers needed help.” So Escalade stepped up to organize the Adopt-a-Crag event, embracing gorilla marketing tactics to get the word out –  everything from talking to people at the gym, to sending out flyers and e-mails, and promoting the clean-up effort through MySpace and Facebook.

When we asked Chris what his reaction was to learning that his team had won the grant money, he stated dryly, “Would you expect anything less from Escalade?” Um…I guess not. Escalade plans to put their grant money toward team uniforms, which they feel with further strengthen their commitment to the team and give the next generation of young climbers something to aspire to.