Great Outdoors University needs your help to teach a kid to fish

Great Outdoors University will host fishing field trips for members of Girls Inc., on Saturday, October 14, and Saturday, October 28. The trips will occur at a private lake in Haywood County. Girls Inc. is the former Girls Clubs in Memphis and serves girls ages 6 - 16 in Memphis' inner-city neighborhoods. 

Participants in the fishing trips will be girls ages 9 - 11. Previous GOU trips have involved boys from Memphis' underserved neighborhoods.

The girls will have received basic fishing instruction prior to the field trip, but volunteers are needed to help them in the hands-on endeavor. Requirements for helping are: a little time (12 - 3 p.m.), some knowledge of fishing (though expertise not required), a sense of humor and fun, and a little patience.

Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency has provided 65 rods and reels for the program. Great Outdoors University provides instruction, bait, tackle, beverages and lunch for participants.

For more information or to volunteer, contact Great Outdoors University director Martha Lyle Ford, 731.780.6737 or mlford@tnwf.org.

This mission of the Great Outdoors University is to connect kids with the Great Outdoors in meaningful, lasting ways. GOU began in Spring 2006 and is a program of the Tennessee Wildlife Federation. Other TWF programs known locally are Hunters for the Hungry and Scholastic Clay Target Program (SCTP). For more information on these and TWF in general, visit www.tnwf.org.