Melanie Haney, assistant director; and Jake King, director of the Leadership Center. Photo by Christine Carignan.
Thrive Outdoors, which runs outdoor camps ranging from teen adventure programs to adult boot camps in Hopkinton, has opened the Community Leadership Center in Manchester, offering leadership and team building programs in an urban setting.
Like its more rustic camp, the Leadership Center will not be limited to programs for adults and will include physical education classes for home-schooled children and a teen adventure group.
Housed in a former train station on Elm Street that was empty for about a decade, the center was renovated into an eclectic mix of activity areas including a horizontal climbing wall, a low-ropes course, a survival course and open space with a stage, local art, tidbits of NH history and a reading nook.
Melanie Haney, marketing and creative director and the assistant director of the center, says in addition to supporting Thrive’s programs, the center will be a gathering space for poetry or open mic nights, and local artists will be able to display and offer their work for sale.
The walls are already covered with murals, and a series of hand-painted posters spell out Thrive’s “Big Five Curriculum” of mindset, shelter, fire, water and food, which Haney says applies to both wilderness survival and everyday life to “empower individuals, encourage community and build leaders. We believe everyone has leadership potential. All of the elements here are designed to teach leadership.”
Jake King, founding partner, lead instructor and director of the center, says community is at the heart of everything they do and has been central to the renovation. A crew from a neighboring business, Badger Builders, stopped by to ask if they could help with construction and stayed on for several weeks.
King says Thrive partners with Manchester Drug Court to allow individuals to do community service. One man, who was only required to do six hours, racked up more than 50 hours crafting a stone exterior on the small furnace room, taking great pride in his work. “He just kept coming back in, day after day, long after he had completed his hours,” says King.
Even the team building programs are community centered, offering challenges to build water filtration systems for countries in need or provide food or clothing to local charities.
The other founding partners are Ed King, research and development lead, and Vinnie Haney, therapeutic and nonprofit ventures lead.
For more information, visit thriveoutdoorsnh.com.
Current Issue - April 2024