“I am doing a part-time job teaching activities that I really love. But that’s really not what we’re up to out here,” states Ken Brink, CYO Pro Staff member.
Ken Brink spent 30 years working in Colorado State Parks. He started as a climbing ranger and worked at 9 different State Parks until he became the State Parks Deputy Director sitting in an office tower in downtown Denver. Alas . . . politics, budget cuts, and personnel issues wears a guy down. After 9 years, Ken retired. Six months later, he was convinced to become a member of the Larimer County Department of Natural Resources and stayed 5 years before ‘retiring for real’ in 2020.
“After 35 years of public service, you underestimate how important a part of your life that is. I’d wonder what interesting call happened today. I’d wonder what everyone did. I did not enjoy retirement . . . I missed the community service thing. It fills me, gives me energy,” says Brink.
Why CYO?
Ken started having breakfasts with the Sportsmen, and quickly found himself suited to volunteering with daytime programming at Colorado Youth Outdoors. From there, it was an obvious move to become Pro Staff, and he hasn’t looked back.
“I’ve found I never work a day out here without seeing 2.5 miracles. If you look, there’s always a little moment with some young person who’s never done the things we do. If you’re able to get that kid to hook a blue gill on a fly rod, with a fly that he or she has tied for the first time, there’s this little moment that happens. We’ve all had it in our lives with different things. Out here, I can create that moment for some of these kids. And those, in my opinion, are life-changing moments.”
Can fishing build self-confidence?
Self-efficacy is a fancy term for a thing we hope to achieve at CYO: an individual’s belief in his or her ability to do tasks that will produce a successful outcome. Or, simply stated – we hope doing our activities helps build self-confidence.
“The world’s been pretty discouraging for people generally. I hope kids use the process of learning how to fish, how to shoot a bow, as a basis to think: If I don’t tune out, or give up, maybe I can be more successful at _______. I believe this happens at CYO a lot.”
How can CYO be improved upon?
“I wish there were more adults in our community willing to invest 2 hours a week in young people — because I see how good it is for the kids. There’s a lot of kids out there that could really benefit from CYO’s programs that don’t get to come,” states Ken.
Turns out learning how to shoot a bow or cast a line can teach a kid a lot about life. Who knew?
Well, Ken Brink does. He currently teaches our during-the-day CORE class on Wednesdays 1:30-3:30 as well as day programming with schools and other partner programming. Thank you, Ken, for adding value to everything we do at Colorado Youth Outdoors!
