Time to kick in for BOW scholarships

It’s one of the most exciting programs in the state, recruiting and introducing women to our favorite outdoor sports.

And now, Becoming an Outdoorswoman (BOW) wants to step it up by increasing its scholarship fund for participating women. Friends of Becoming an Outdoors Woman has taken on the challenge of raising these scholarship funds.

As Jenn Curtis recently wrote me, “BOW introductory skills weekends have been wildly successful at introducing women to new opportunities for outdoor recreation… and the newly offered Beyond BOW programs, which provide more in-depth training to outdoors women, have been an equally big hit.”

While asking for my help to raise scholarship funds, Jen personalized her request by telling me, “I personally benefited from a Friend of BOW scholarship in 2010, while I was attending graduate school. Without the scholarship, I could not have afforded to attend.” Today, Jenn is an active member of the Friends group and an avid hunter.

We recently traded stories about our turkey hunts this spring.

The BOW program is sponsored by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and aimed primarily at women 18 years and older. BOW seeks to provide introductory learning experiences in a variety of outdoor skills including hunting, fishing and general outdoor recreation. An average of 100 women attend these workshops annually.

I can tell you that the leaders of this program at BIW and the Friends Group are outstanding women. They deserve our help.

The group’s modest goal is to award fifteen $100 scholarships this year, beginning with the Introductory Skills Weekend in mid-September.

The saddest news is that a number of women were unable to attend BOW workshops last year because the Friends scholarship funds ran out.

I encourage you to join me in sending a donation, payable to Friends of Maine BOW and mailed to Friends of Maine BOW, 72 Glenridge Drive, Portland, ME 04102.

Lets WOW our friends at BOW with a flood of scholarship funding!

George Smith

About George Smith

George stepped down at the end of 2010 after 18 years as the executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to write full time. He writes a weekly editorial page column in the Kennebec Journal and Waterville Morning Sentinel, a weekly travel column in those same newspapers (with his wife Linda), monthly columns in The Maine Sportsman magazine, two outdoor news blogs (one on his website, georgesmithmaine.com, and one on the website of the Bangor Daily News), and special columns for many publications and newsletters. Islandport Press published a book of George's favorite columns, "A Life Lived Outdoors" in 2014. In 2014, George also won a Maine Press Association award for writing the state's bet sports blog. In 2016, Down East Books published George's book, Maine Sporting Camps, and Islandport Press published George and his wife Linda's travel book, Take It From ME, about their favorite Maine inns and restaurants.