#GivingTuesday
Peace Vans was founded on connection, community, and the great outdoors. We believe in supporting, elevating, and advocating for marginalized communities, protecting and caring for the places we love, and giving back to our neighbors and to this planet we all call home. That’s how we thrive.
We’re on a mission to spread peace, love, and happiness. Our business is guided by these simple yet meaningful values. And when something isn’t right, when something needs attention—we roll up our sleeves and learn how we can help make it better.
This #GivingTuesday, please join us in supporting the eight organizations below. They’re fighting the good fight for a healthier planet and a more just world. We love how dedicated days, like #GivingTuesday, remind us about the importance of giving back. But the real difference comes when we extend that support 365 days a year.
There’s no better day than today to start making an impact.
Courtesy: Big City Mountaineers
Big City Mountaineers
Big City Mountaineers works alongside the transformative power of nature and youth agency partners to leave a lasting impact on the lives of young people. Their programs focus on providing access to the outdoors for underrepresented youth from communities lacking that crucial access to nature. By providing free, fully outfitted, and professionally led backcountry trips, Big City Mountaineers is able to give youth the opportunity to connect with nature and reconnect with their strengths, skills, and resilience. The organization is committed to providing transformative experiences through nature that strengthen life skills and build community for youth from disinvested communities.
Courtesy: Latino Outdoors
Latino Outdoors
The Latino population is the fastest growing demographic in the U.S., but among the most underrepresented in conservation, outdoor recreation, and environmental education. Latino Outdoors works to inspire, connect, and engage Latino communities in the outdoors and embrace cultura y familia as part of the outdoor narrative, ensuring Latino history, heritage, and leadership are valued and represented. The organization envisions a world where all Latino communities enjoy nature as a safe, inclusive, and welcoming place—a world where the outdoors is a place to share and celebrate stories, knowledge, and culture, while growing leadership and an active community of Latino outdoor users, mentors, and stewards.
Courtesy: Lambert House
Lambert House
Lambert House is an international leader in LGBTQ youth community building—the primary prevention strategy for the constellation of risks that disproportionately affects all LGBTQ youth. They work to address social isolation, depression, suicide, alcohol and other drug use, HIV and other STDs, family conflict that can lead to homelessness and survival sex, and school failure. Lambert House provides LGBTQ youth with daily opportunities to make friends with other youth like themselves and with supportive adults—a connection with peers and adults that immediately makes life better for LGBTQ youth.
Courtesy: National Parks Foundation
National Parks Foundation
Our national parks are a uniquely American idea. For many of us, our first foray into the American road trip experience centered around an adventure in a national park. It’s the draw of the wild and untamed land, the places where history was made, and the sites that honor our heroes. The National Parks Foundation works in partnership with the National Park Service to safeguard our national heritage, ensuring future generations of nature enthusiasts enjoy the parks we love today. Through the support of private citizens, park lovers, stewards of nature, history enthusiasts, wilderness adventurers—every American from every walk of life—we can protect and care for these iconic landscapes deeply rooted in our DNA.
Courtesy: She Jumps
SheJumps
Earlier this year, we teamed up with SheJumps on a unique partnership with a couple of our favorite Seattle artists for Women’s Equality Day. We’re excited to spotlight this inspiring organization again for #GivingTuesday. SheJumps works to empower women and girls—cisgender, transgender, as well as non-binary people who identify with the women’s community—through supportive experiences in nature. The organization was born out of the idea to create a team sport in the outdoors. No matter where you are from or what your experience is, SheJumps whole-heartedly believes you can lead an adventurous and fun life. They work to create safe, educational outdoor experiences for girls and women that nurture growth and transformation—helping women and girls take risks in the outdoors to enable them to break through fears and barriers in other aspects of their lives. Simply put, they inspire women and girls to “jump” beyond their limitations.
Courtesy: Free2Luv
Free2Luv
Today’s youth are under pressure. Now more than ever—in schools, in our communities, and online—kids are struggling with bullying, intolerance, emotional distress, identity issues, self-loathing, and self-harm. And the consequences are devastating. 1 in 3 children report they’ve been bullied at school, and 30% admit to bullying others. Over the last decade, the number of youth experiencing mental health disorders has more than doubled, but only 20% of those affected are getting help. Suicide rates for teens and young adults have reached an unprecedented high—suicide is now a leading cause of death for people age 10 to 24. Free2Luv believes there’s a common factor behind each of these issues: low self-esteem/a lack of self-love. Our youth need to know they are unique, they are valuable, and they are not alone. Free2Luv is dedicated to empowering, uplifting, and saving the lives of youth through music, art, film, theater, dance, and storytelling. They provide the safe spaces and tools needed for creative self-expression, to celebrate individuality and acceptance, and transform pain into power.
Courtesy: Wild Diversity
Wild Diversity
Wild Diversity helps to create a personal connection to the outdoors for BIPOC and the LGBTQ2S+ communities through outdoor adventures and education. The organization works to build a sense of belonging through outdoor adventures, provide resources through outdoor skills workshops, and strengthen support systems through community partnerships. With a focus on equipping the next generation by creating equitable access to outdoor adventures and education for youth of color, and queer, trans, and low-income youth, the nonprofit believes that Wild Diversity is the future. A world in which BIPOC and LGBTQ2S+ folks feel more connected to the outdoors is inherently a better world—one in which people are more aligned with the planet. They provide opportunities for people to cultivate these connections for themselves—finding the knowledge that they, too, are outdoorists.
Courtesy: Outdoor Advocacy Project
Outdoor Advocacy Project
Advocacy is the backbone and lifeline of everything the outdoor community and industry is built upon. As beneficiaries of our public lands, the outdoor industry has a deep responsibility to serve and protect these lands. Outdoor Advocacy Project is designed to activate the outdoor community through accessible education, empowerment, and activations. The initiative focuses on shared stewardship, policy, climate communications, and community health—spreading education and empowerment to individuals, and urging industry stakeholders to step up to their inherent responsibility to do good and act environmentally.