Fifteen years ago Paul Picard (Vice-Principal) and Greg Peck (Physical Education Consultant) from the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board (WECDSB) were looking to provide Grade 8 students with an outdoor recreational experience that would emphasize an active healthy lifestyle and focus on the development of leadership and life skills. They contacted the Muskoka Woods Sports Resort, a Christian, interdenominational, non-profit sports resort welcoming youth of any race or creed to inquire about their program. Muskoka Woods is an established sport facility located on beautiful Lake Rosseau, Ontario.
In the Muskoka Woods Outdoor Recreation program, they believe it is not essential to be excellent at a sport or activity, but rather promote an active healthy lifestyle through participation, encouraging students to simply try their best. Therefore, desiring to see each student actively participate in each activity. The most common reason for non-participation in an activity is "Fear-of Failure." Muskoka Woods' endeavors to create an atmosphere of "positive encouragement" where students can try a new activity in a safe, caring environment and have some success. They do not encourage or tolerate put downs or bullying. Paul and Greg soon realized that Muskoka Woods would be an ideal setting for life-changing, fun-filled adventure with an incredible variety of opportunities.
In the spring of 1993 Greg & Paul set off on a yellow school bus with 45 students and their teachers to Muskoka Woods. Upon arriving at the resort they were most impressed with the facility. It is located on over 1000 beautiful wooded acres and 2800 feet of shoreline on Lake Rosseau, in the heart of the Muskoka Lakes Region. They spent 3 nights and 4 days enjoying the great outdoors with their students. Upon their departure they agreed to return to Muskoka Woods the following year.
The next year an additional three schools joined them in the Experience with a total of 120 students. Again, it was so well received that plans were put in place to expand and continue the following year with the hope of filling the resort to capacity. The organizers believed that by having only schools from their Board on site would allow them to create many more programming and community building opportunities.
The third year of the Experience involved nine schools with a total of 300 students and staff participating in the Experience. It was in that year that the organizers realized they could only expand and enrich the program by utilizing WECDSB secondary students and staff as program leaders and instructors, thus creating an elementary/secondary model of leadership within their Board.
In subsequent years, the secondary leadership component of the Experience expanded to include Grade 11 and 12 leaders from secondary schools. Having more secondary students enrolled in leadership courses at their respective schools allowed the organizing group to increase the elementary participation in the Experience.
In its fourteen years of existence, the Muskoka Woods Leadership Experience, as it is now know, has grown from one elementary school and 45 students to thirty-five elementary schools and 1,200 students a year. The secondary leadership component now includes over 300 students from eight secondary schools each year. In the fall of 2005 the program was again expanded to include a program for At-Risk secondary students. As of the spring of 2007 over 15,000 students from the WECDSB will have participated in the Muskoka Woods Leadership Experience.