Photo by Christie Clark

This November marked the one-year anniversary of Sonoma Ecology Center’s outdoor gear lending library at Sugarloaf Ridge State Park—a community resource we are deeply proud of. The library was created to expand environmental education and overnight programming throughout Sonoma Valley. By removing the financial and logistical barriers of renting or purchasing outdoor gear and equipment, the library makes overnight experiences in nature more equitable and inclusive for all students, regardless of background.

Although the gear library’s physical home is at Sugarloaf, its impact is county-wide. Thanks to our fantastic partners—Community Foundation of Sonoma County, Sonoma Valley Catalyst Fund, REI – Santa Rosa, Marmot, Nemo Equipment, Impact100, and the Rotary Club of Sonoma Valley—we loan camping gear including tents, sleeping bags and sleeping pads, free of charge to our nonprofit partners in the Sonoma Environmental Education Collaborative (SEEC), making overnight outdoor adventures accessible to all Sonoma Valley kids and facilitating meaningful, lasting connections between young people and the natural world.

Tony Passantino, SEC’s Education Program Manager and SEEC Chair, who has spearheaded the creation of the library, shares:

Field trips and campouts immerse students in nature, deepening their understanding of native landscapes, biodiversity, and the importance of protecting water and land resources. These experiences often spark a lifelong connection to the environment and encourage future conservation-minded behavior.

According to Tony, the inspiration for the gear library arrived from a few different places. Before the fires at Sugarloaf, the park regularly hosted annual youth program campouts as part of its summer camp series, that included camping and backpacking trainings for participants, and which Tony was seeking to reignite. At the same time, he had forged a close relationship with Bay Area Wilderness Training (BAWT) through his decade-long work with the group, first as a participant, and then as a wilderness leadership trainer. He often used their gear for Sugarloaf programming including education campouts, Wappo tribal campouts, and family campouts with Senderos Naturales, SEC’s nature-based program in Spanish. Though access to BAWT’s gear was a great help, it required many trips back and forth to Oakland. Ultimately, BAWT gave Tony and Sonoma Ecology Center their blessing to design its own gear library, and even donated 10 tents to help get it started!

As chair of SEEC, Tony has also been eager to expand the organization’s shared resources. Through SEEC’s Pathways Program—a countywide initiative to strengthen environmental literacy—SEC and our partners have been able to broaden outdoor offerings and provide free campouts for 5th-grade classes. We currently teach every student from 2nd through 5th grade, and the campout now serves as a capstone experience for those progressing through the environmental literacy pathway. The gear library supplies everything needed to make the campout possible.

Finally, Tony feels incredibly fortunate to have a dedicated team of staff who were excited by the idea of campouts and advocated for extending this programming.

Sonoma Land Trust used the gear this fall in a campout for its bilingual program Familias al Aire Libre. Carlos Rivas, the Bilingual Outings Coordinator at Sonoma Land Trust said, “It was amazing working with SEC to access the gear library. It made things so doable.” Carlos is looking forward to planning another camping trip for Familias al Aire Libre next year, and hopes the library thrives so he can continue to use it in the future.

Educators from Teravana plan to integrate the gear library into on-site environmental education experiences for school-aged children at Teravana’s Living Learning Center in Cazadero. Tony is looking forward to hosting another orientation to facilitators and teachers in 2026 to expand the library’s offering to community partners. 

This school year so far, SEC has held two campouts, one with El Verano and one with Flowery. Tony shared:

The students RAVED about the experience, and over half of them raised their hand when asked if this was their first campout. Another sweet story is the parent involvement, we had over 10 parents support each campout and get to watch their child and classmates participate in the school campout. One such parent, an active military marine, took time off from duty just for this event to spend with his son’s first campout and support the program.

These first experiences in nature for students, teachers and their families are so impactful, and can often inspire a lifelong curiosity and connection to the natural world. “Their first overnight campout with their peers—that’s such an important experience for them,” says Tony.

Additional plans for the coming year include partnering with Outdoor Empowerment Network, a nationwide gear library collaborative, on a new checkout software system as well as building more culturally relevant programming to ensure we are meeting the needs of all of our community. Tony would also like to include a subset of gear that can be used for backpacking programs and is excited to be in talks with Save the Redwoods league for a possible backpacking site to collaborate with on overnight programming.

Tony feels grateful for the outpouring of support from the community, who have offered to donate additional camping gear, and is eager to leverage the generosity of Sonomans to continue expanding the library’s reach, saying, “We love the outpouring of support and want to receive all the gracious offerings, but have limited space capacity. We are hoping to open another space where general gear can be received and offered to the community beyond our education programming, so that anyone who wants to come up and camp at Sugarloaf will have access to free rental gear.” 

What began just one year ago as a small pilot program, has already grown into a resource that is creating lasting, meaningful experiences in nature for youth throughout Sonoma Valley. We are excited to see the gear library’s impact continue to grow in the years ahead as it increases opportunities for overnight programs and helps create more memorable and wonder-filled experiences in the outdoors.