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Mallory Reese has dubbed it "BYU outdoor hour" — a simple 60 minutes to some of Utah's best outdoor recreation spots combined with encouraging her fellow students to get outside for at least one hour per week.
Reese, who was selected as one of 13 Outdoor Nation and Merrell College Ambassadors from around the nation, is looking to use her new position "to help [BYU students] see you really don't have to go far to go on an adventure. There's stuff right in our backyard."
The ambassador position gives students a $1,000 stipend for themselves as well as a $1,000 allocation to their college to program new outdoor initiatives on campus.
After Southern Utah University won the Outdoor Nation Campus Challenge last year, dubbed "Mother Nature meets March Madness," Outdoor Nation spokeswoman Stasia Raines said the company wanted to expand activation for university students.
Applicants for the inaugural ambassador program were tasked with shooting a video, outlining a plan of action and creating a social media campaign to personalize the importance of outdoor recreation for themselves and for their classmates.
"I think there's excitement when you feel like you have ownership," Raines said. "It makes something like the outdoors — this big topic — personal and exciting for these college students."
Reese began her BYU initiative in December with an Instagram campaign encouraging students to post their plans of getting outside to enjoy Utah's winter.
Pending approval of the school's $1,000, she's planning snowshoeing and trail-running clinics, as well as a rock climbing night at a local gym in the spring.
She said the ultimate goal of her time as an ambassador is to streamline student access to BYU-sponsored outdoor programs and increase awareness to students that outdoor recreation clubs are readily available on campus.
"Right now, it's kind of vague just because BYU is so big, it's hard to know where to start in planning those activities and how to get them approved," Reese said.
Raines highlighted the need for young energy and fresh ideas in the outdoor industry that the ambassador program was designed to inspire, along with a sense of responsibility that is learned on the trail, in the forest and among the mountains.
"We're talking about empowering a whole generation of people that care and fight for the issues that people who've come before them have fought for so well," she said.
Reese, an avid rock climber and cross-country skier, said that for only an hour a day, or only an hour away, it's hard to top her own backyard as an outdoor ambassador's office.
"There's nothing you can't do in Utah," she said.
Twitter: @BrennanJSmith —
Outdoor Nation and Merrell College Ambassadors
P For more information on this program, visit: http://outdoornation.org/campusactivation