Building Goodness While Building Community

Three NOLS grads recently came to our attention on YouTube. In this short documentary, Jack Stoner, Michael Cernik and Michael Boggs, all 2008 NOLS Professional Training participants through the Building Goodness Foundation, speak about 10 years of building community and improving lives here and abroad.

Established in 1999 by a group of builders in Charlottesville, Virginia, the Building Goodness Foundation has grown quickly over the past decade. So much so that founders Jack Stoner and Lawson Drinkard (a 2001 NOLS Baja Sea Kayaking grad) decided in 2008 that their team leaders, though well-versed in construction skills, needed training in risk management and leadership.

NOLS Professional Training had just the solution: a custom-built Team Leader Training . Now in its third year running, the course spans four days and involves classroom sessions, a navigation challenge, emergency medical scenarios, and various case studies on leadership and risk management.

The results of their NOLS training paid off quickly. Building Goodness not only came to the help of Haitians left homeless by the earthquake in 2010, they have stayed in Haiti and now have seven local projects currently in the works. Read more about Building Goodness in the fall 2010 edition of The Leader.