WE GO! Outdoor Grit combines community service with physical fitness: hiking, conditioning, and outdoor challenges that teach students to stay with a goal and push past their limits. It is for G5 to G12, is included in membership activities, and runs on a rolling schedule.

What Students Do in WE GO! Outdoor Grit

  • Hiking and outdoor challenges: hiking routes and outdoor tasks graded by difficulty. Students prepare for each outing, including the route, supplies, gear, and timing.
  • Conditioning: basic fitness training in preparation for outdoor activities, with visible stage goals rather than scattered exercise.
  • Combined with service: activity and community service go together, for example cleaning up the environment along a hiking trail or completing a mileage challenge for a charitable project. This gives perseverance a meaning beyond the individual.

Why WE GO! Combines Service and Fitness

Fitness training alone is hard to sustain, because the goal concerns only oneself. Service alone often stops at one-time participation. When the two are combined, students have both a concrete physical challenge and a reason they must finish. For many children, this is where they first keep going because they made a promise to someone else.

Can Children Who Are Not Especially Athletic Join WE GO!

Yes. Activities are graded by difficulty, the starting point is low, and goals are set for each child. Progress is measured against the student’s own starting point, not against others. What the program works on is resilience: whether a student can keep going when things get hard, not whether the student was already fast.

What the WE GO! Record Is For

Participation is recorded in the growth report. In high school, a sustained record of fitness and service points toward a formal Congressional Award application. The award has requirements for service hours, physical fitness, and personal skills, and it is one of the few awards that puts long-term perseverance into measurable terms.

To do organizing work in community affairs, see Cross-cultural Social Skills. To practice leading a team and delivering results, see the Project Lead Challenge.

WE GO! Outdoor Grit and Future Skills Membership

WE GO! Outdoor Grit is for Life Lab members. Every step is logged in the Human Skills record kept with our partner nonprofit, Project Next Foundation (PNF), and in high school points toward a formal Congressional Award application (age 13.5+).

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WE GO!: Frequently Asked Questions

What does WE GO! involve?

Community service combined with fitness: hikes, conditioning, and outdoor challenges that ask students to hold to a goal and push past their own limits. It is included in the membership and runs on a rolling schedule.

Why combine service with fitness?

Because one outing can do both. Students get the physical training from hiking and outdoor challenges while also taking part in serving the community, so a weekend does not have to be spent choosing between the two.

Are the hikes near Irvine?

Hikes and outdoor challenges are graded by difficulty and run at outdoor sites in and around Irvine, with students preparing the route, supplies, gear, and timing for each trip. A student who is not athletic can still join, because progress is measured against the student's own starting point rather than against others.

Which grades can Irvine students join in?

G5 through G12. Fitness is one of the four tracks in the Life Lab membership for G4 to G8, alongside communication, entrepreneurship, and leadership, and members can follow more than one track in the same year.

What is the record used for?

Every step a member takes is logged in the Human Skills record kept with our partner nonprofit, Project Next Foundation (PNF), and members receive a growth report. In high school that record points toward a formal Congressional Award application, which sets requirements for service hours, physical fitness, and personal skills and is open from age 13.5. For an Irvine student, several years of fitness and service entries is one of the few ways long commitment can be quantified.