Two new officers elected on Colorado Outdoor Equity Grant Board
Travis Duncan
DENVER – Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s Colorado Outdoor Equity Grant Board has elected Yesica Chavez as Chair and Benilda “Benny” Samuels as Vice Chair.The board, created by the passage of House Bill 21-1318, will award grants designed to widen accessibility to the outdoors for Coloradans from underserved communities. The grants also are designed to provide environmental, experiential, outdoor, stewardship and conservation education for Colorado youth or families, and that address inequities Coloradans face in accessing the outdoors.
The board is composed of members representing communities that have faced barriers to accessing Colorado’s outdoors and are responsible for the governance of the Outdoor Equity Grant program.
“I am honored to serve as the first Chair of the newly formed Colorado Outdoor Equity Grants Board,” Chavez said. “And I’m excited to help shape a new path for outdoor recreation, conservation and sustainability and to make outdoor spaces a more just, equitable and inclusive place.”
Samuels was equally excited about the opportunity.
“The Outdoor Equity Fund will increase access to the restorative powers of the land so that we can all enjoy it, respect it and conserve it,” Samuels said.
The Colorado Outdoor Equity Grant Board is accepting applications through April 8 to fund programs that bring about transformative change throughout communities.
About Yesica Chavez:
Yesica is a first-generation graduate who earned a B.S. in Psychology with a minor in Ethnic Studies from the University of Colorado Denver. She coordinated various projects in the environmental justice, sustainability, and equity/inclusion sectors while earning her bachelor's degree. As a young person herself, she understood the importance of including young people in decision-making that affects our future. She grew up in Denver and remembers seeing the mountains from a distance from her home in Montbello, but she never felt connected to them. She hopes that by serving on this board, she will be able to help close the gap between underserved youth and outdoor recreation by funding programs that are already doing so or hoping to start. In her free time she likes to hike, rock climb, snowboard and spend time with her family.
About Benilda “Benny” Samuels:
Benny Samuels is a seasoned multicultural, multi-lingual leader in health, human service and nonprofit. In her 30-year career, Samuels has led transformational programs that have increased access, equity, voice and power (in the form of self-sufficiency) for children, families, and communities, with an intentional emphasis on supporting communities of color and those living in poverty and furthest from opportunity across Colorado and nationally. Her accomplishments include the Statewide Colorado Family Planning Project, which reduced unintended pregnancies in Colorado by 40 percent in 4 years. Benny also implemented the W.K. Kellogg Foundation multi-million-dollar grant investment and flagship national demonstration project, Community Voices, enrolling thousands of children in the Child Health Plan Plus and uninsured adults into Medicaid and the Colorado Indigent Care Program. Most recently, Benny led the operations of a $56 million investment for Nurse-Family Partnership to scale the model by making it accessible to thousands of first-time mothers living in poverty.
More information on the Colorado Outdoor Equity Grant Board is available on CPW’s website.
Photo captions: left, Benilda "Benny" Samuels. Right, Yesica Chavez.
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Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) is an enterprise agency, relying primarily on license sales, state parks fees and registration fees to support its operations, including: 43 state parks and more than 350 wildlife areas covering approximately 900,000 acres, management of fishing and hunting, wildlife watching, camping, motorized and non-motorized trails, boating and outdoor education. CPW's work contributes approximately $6 billion in total economic impact annually throughout Colorado.