Fresh Tracks

Harnessing the Power of the Outdoors and Culture, Igniting Community-Led Change

Fresh Tracks, a project of the Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions, equips diverse youth with cross-cultural community building skills, leadership development training, civic engagement opportunities, and the tools to drive innovative youth-led and community-led action. Rooted in the healing power of the outdoors and culture, our movement uplifts and seeks to elevate youth voices.

Across the country, youth of color are disproportionately impacted by systems of injustice—especially within the criminal and juvenile legal systems. Yet, efforts to challenge and transform these systems are often fragmented, separated by geography, identity, or lived experience. Fresh Tracks bridges those divides.

Through an intentionally cross-cultural approach, we cultivate community cohesion and invest in the next generation of leaders—leaders who are prepared to reach across silos, amplify community wisdom, and drive collective action. By centering wellbeing, we’re building a future where young people not only lead, but thrive.

 Fresh Tracks aims to:

  • Create a national network of Fresh Tracks youth movement leaders
  • Harness the healing power of nature and culture
  • Foster cross-sector collaboration and intergenerational learning
  • Amplify youth voices in policy and decision-making
  • Build evidence-based strategies for systemic change
  • Co-lead with philanthropic partners for 21st century change
  • Design culturally responsive wellbeing tools that empower youth and their communities

What We’ve Been Doing  

Youth and Young Adult Wellbeing Project 

The Youth and Young Adult Wellbeing Project is a collaborative effort undertaken by young people and adult allies from communities and organizations across the United States and Canada. A primary objective of the project is to support young people as they define, collect, and make meaning of data about their wellbeing. Using Youth-Led Participatory Action Research (YPAR), we’ve developed an innovative framework that amplifies youth voices and challenges traditional research approaches.

Watch Fresh Track’s Session on the Youth & Young Adult Wellbeing Project – Timestamped 56:17 onwards

Together we are creating youth-led wellbeing surveys created for the communities we live in 

2025 and beyond we are focusing on creating an adaptive online tool that provides culturally responsive well-being measures, allowing communities to measure and define their own wellness narratives and shape wellbeing in a cultural context. 

Read our guide, “Centering Youth in Well-Being Research and Programming,” created by the research navigators and adult allies involved in this project 

Empowering Native Youth Leadership

Fresh Tracks is dedicated to creating meaningful pathways for Indigenous youth leadership. In 2024, we supported 11 Indigenous youth delegates to the White House Tribal Youth Forum, providing critical opportunities for young leaders to engage in high-level policy discussions. Through partnerships with organizations like Native Americans in Philanthropy, we’ve created spaces for Indigenous youth to shape conversations around wellbeing, climate resilience and cultural preservation. From our Trainers team at  Native Youth Community Adaptation Leadership Congress to national policy forums, we’re committed to amplifying youth voices, supporting their unique perspectives, and building pathways for meaningful community impact.

Voices of Fresh Tracks 

“One of my favorite parts of the Fresh Tracks experience was meeting so many amazing people representing their communities in a positive way. I learned how to break down ideas via a comprehensive action plan, simplifying the more complicated aspects of planning various events. I can teach others the power of influence among any size group of people. It doesn’t take the entire world to make a change, just one person dedicated to influencing the people around him/her into envisioning that change themselves,” — Trenton Casillas Bakeberg, Cheyenne River Sioux.
“If you don’t feel like you have a place, you’ll find a place. People will make space for you. This is a Native space. Everyone comes as strangers and leaves as family. When you come here, you’re not going to leave as the same person and will carry away so many positive memories”— Liz Riley, Fresh Tracks Trainer
“The future of wellbeing coming out of this process is that we will be able to create policy that supports wellbeing for our communities, and have the data to back it up. We will be able to implement more specific programs that foster wellbeing.”—  Shaquana Boykin, Fresh Tracks Wellbeing Project 
“I see Fresh Tracks helping me become a leader by giving me the skills to communicate with my community. I actually have an idea of starting my own leadership camp in Barrow for younger kids,”  — Kimberly Pikok, Iñupiat.

Resources

People and Land Acknowledgement

Since time immemorial, Native communities across the Americas have demonstrated resilience and resistance in the face of violent efforts to separate them from their land, culture, and each other. Indigenous people remain at the forefront of movements for justice, equity, the protection of nature and the life it sustains.

Native American communities continue to thrive and lead the movements for human rights today. The Fresh Tracks team acknowledges the critical and necessary step to honor Native communities and their leadership to build an equitable future for all. Fresh Tracks encourages all to uncover truths of the original inhabitants of the land we all walk on.

Fresh Tracks is grateful for our funding partners:

The Annie E. Casey Foundation 

REI Co-Op

Nat Recreation Foundation 

Treeline Foundation 

ECMC Foundation 

11th Hour

Dorothy T. Goldman Foundation