Catching Up With CAT, 15th Year Edition: Laura Statesir
Welcome to the 15th Anniversary Edition of Catching Up With CAT! Can you believe it's been fifteen years? This is a big milestone for us, so we're bringing you this special series to reflect, honor, and celebrate our first fifteen years as an organization. We will share reflections on 2023 –- a year of both extraordinary challenges and remarkable growth for CAT, the fifteen years that led us here, and our most dear and heartfelt dreams for the next fifteen years and beyond.
As we look towards the year's end, our team is eager to personally connect with you and unpack what this moment means to each of us. Five of our staff members have been involved with CAT one way or another for a solid decade and we've got a lot to share. From the long-timers to our newer team members, you'll hear heartache, pride, and joy as we share stories that define what CAT is all about and the meaning we take from our work and the community we're building.
As you engage with the stories we share, I hope you’ll join us in holding and paying witness to the both-and of this moment. While the last fifteen years have been abundant in joy, care, and transformation, we’d be remiss not to also reckon with the grief, loss, and injustice that our communities and our participants confront daily.
Many of the young people we are in community with are navigating circumstances – or have tragically lost their lives – as a consequence of structural divestment and oppression. In times of unbearable loss and sorrow, we have found ways to practice deep community care, to experience joy and play, while never losing touch with our heartbreak. We hope that the stories we share -– in all their complexities and contradictions –- honor the lived experiences of the individuals and communities we work with and in. And as we embark on the next fifteen years, it is precisely these stories that anchor us in our commitment to continue our work at the intersection of outdoor adventure, justice, and personal transformation.
To kick this special series off, today's Catching Up With CAT is brought to you by Laura, our Director Of Programs. Thank you for journeying with us through 15 years of CAT. If you'd like to join us in making the next 15 years even more impactful, make a gift today and help us enter 2024 stronger than ever.
"But what is most important to me about my time with CAT is not our growth or even the respect we hold in this community. It’s the privilege of being a part of something that truly changes people’s lives...I am certain that what we do makes a difference and matters."
This Week’s Catch Up
* The names used below were changed to protect the confidentiality of the participants.
In 2013 I pestered our Executive Director until she let me start volunteering for CAT. My first programs were with The Night Ministry, two Fridays a month. That summer I had the privilege of volunteering on the Gitchee Gumme trip to the Great Lakes Sea Kayak Symposium. After seeing the impact that trip had on participants, I knew I had found my purpose and needed to work for CAT. In 2015 I started fundraising my salary so that I could join CAT staff. Eight years later, I am still here.
When I started, we didn’t do After School programs, Family Adventures, Community Outreach, or even Adventure Communities. We didn’t have 12-passenger vans. We didn’t have a true workspace. Andrea and I were the only full-time staff and we ran everything out of her basement. What we did have was a passion for the healing power of the outdoors and an unwavering dedication to this work. When we wanted to paddle in the winter, we first had to dig a trailer of boats out of the snow in the alley. When I cleaned tents, I hung them to dry on the fence between Andrea and her neighbor’s house. We did laundry in her washing machine and dishes in her dishwasher. When I got a puppy, he had to learn to get along with Andrea’s cats. And I did our taxes (I am not a CPA).
Fast forward to 2023, and we have eight full-time, year-round employees, half of whom are former participants. We have five program areas plus offering CPR/First Aid courses. We have two 12-passenger vans. We have a giant office space with heat and AC. We have traveled the world with the Adventure Communities and served 1,225 participants in the last year alone. And thankfully, I no longer do our taxes.
But what is most important to me about my time with CAT is not our growth or even the respect we hold in this community. It’s the privilege of being a part of something that truly changes people’s lives.
I’m not naive enough to think that every single person we interact with walks away changed for the better. I’m also not naïve enough to think that our little organization can change Chicago’s very real gun violence, discrimination, socioeconomic divide, and/or social justice issues. However, I am certain that we what do makes a difference and matters.
It mattered to Carlos*, a youth from a gang intervention program, with whom we had a few really good months of watching him grow and change as a person before he lost his life to gun violence. .
It matters to Fred, who I met at an overnight homeless shelter in 2014 when he didn’t have anywhere else to go, who is now a full-time member of our staff, married, and expecting a baby boy.
It matters to Jamila, a youth who got dragged into going on a camping trip with us and is now one of our most helpful and competent volunteers.
It matters to Pablo*, who cursed at Andrea when she caught him with a bottle of alcohol on sea kayaking trip to Mexico, but kept come back and paddling with us, year after year. He now lives in Texas, is attending college, and escaped the gang life he was forced into here in Chicago.
It matters to Chris*, who came out as trans at a sea kayaking expo with CAT and was a part of our Paddling Community for years until he moved to New Orleans and became a police officer.
And it matters to the young person from a homeless shelter that I just met today, who realized she was allowed to fail in the safety of our group for one of the first times in her life.
After 15 years, what we do still matters. Thank you for helping us get this far - we could not have done it without you. I hope you’ll be a part of doing what matters for another 15 more.
