Meet the Ashland Outdoor Club: How One Northern Maine School Exemplifies Life Outside
Nearly half the students at Ashland District School are members of the Outdoor Club. Thirty-four of those seventy-seven students have chosen to make the outdoors a regular part of their school year. That number alone tells you something. So does the fact that when they show up to Teens to Trails events after a typical three+ hour drive from Aroostook County, they somehow also arrive with the best camp food anyone has seen. Word gets around. At Teens to Trails gatherings, it doesn't take long before other students and advisors are making their way over to see what Ashland brought, and there's always enough to share.
A Club Built on "Yes"
Club advisor Amanda Barker has a simple philosophy: if a student wants to go outside, the club finds a way to make it happen. That means accounting for food allergies and gear gaps, arranging chaperones and transportation, and letting students lead the way. Club officers are elected by members, and students vote on activities and help plan logistics.
The calendar they've built reflects their range. September 2025 was a fire-building session and tea boil competition at the Ashland Logging Museum. October brought a camping trip to Camden Hills State Park with Teens to Trails. November was Dutch oven cooking and building a log play structure from scratch. December was a nighttime game of Manhunt, “harder to photograph”, Amanda notes, because the students are all hiding in the dark. January meant snowshoes on at Aroostook State Park's North Peak, most of the students wearing boots donated through Teens to Trails earlier in the season.
Ten of the club's eleven Ski-4-Life participants are also Outdoor Club members, and Amanda advises both programs. For these students, being outdoors isn't a once-a-year field trip. It's a practice.
The Grant That Started a Ripple Effect
This fall, Teens to Trails announced the recipients of its 2025 Grants to Clubs program, and Ashland was among them. The $600 grant, supported by L.L. Bean, is actually the fourth time Ashland has received this award, and this year senior Layla Burby, the club president, wrote the application herself. Each year it supports the same core purpose: keeping the doors open for every student who wants to participate, covering transportation, food, campground fees, gear, and the centerpiece of the club's year, a whitewater rafting trip on the Penobscot River. This spring, 24 students and three chaperones are already signed up.
As student Cassidy Rafford put it after last year's trip: "I had so much fun, and after falling in the water, I got right back in. The food was delicious and we had fun around the campground." That's the Ashland Outdoor Club in a sentence.
Shortly after the grant was announced, a journalist from The County and the Bangor Daily News reached out and ran a feature on the club. It was a meaningful moment of recognition for a group that quietly does a lot of good work, far from the spotlight. And it set something in motion.
What Happened Next
When community members in Aroostook County saw those articles, some of them were moved to step up and help the club with funding more life changing outdoor experiences.
Within weeks, the club received two sizable donations. A grandfather of one of the club's own members contributed $500, money the club is considering putting toward ski nights at BigRock Mountain. And a retired school superintendent offered something harder to put a price on: he would personally sponsor a three-to-four-day camping trip anywhere in Maine. Camping fees, food, activities: all covered. He suggested Acadia, which is now his neighborhood, and loved the idea of these Aroostook kids making the trip south.
The donations are meaningful, but they point to something bigger. Nearly half of Ashland's students are in this club because it gives them something real: time outside with their peers, away from screens, building the kind of confidence and connection that's hard to manufacture in a classroom. When a community invests in that, the returns go well beyond a camping trip.
The Bigger Picture
Amanda once described success for the Ashland Outdoor Club this way: "If they enjoyed an activity, even though it wasn't perfect or structured or met any formal learning goals, and the meatballs were burnt while the stick bread was a little doughy, and they're willing to try it again, the program has succeeded."
These students are learning to be outside, to work together, and to try things that don't always go perfectly. That's not a small thing.
We can't wait to see where the Ashland Outdoor Club heads next.
If you'd like to support outdoor clubs like Ashland's across Maine, you can make a gift to Teens to Trails or learn more about Teens to Trails grant and scholarship programs.