Scaling walls helps kids feel super terrific in Oklahoma City
Climbing gym helps youth project

All I could see of the boy’s face through a mass of shaggy black hair was his smile.

"This is awesome,” he shouted down from 40 feet up. "I feel like Spider-Man.”

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Touchstone Youth Project

Touchstone Youth Project is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping disadvantaged kids grow through mentoring and adventure-based education. Students rock climb and work with mentors for free at Rocktown Climbing Gym. If students continue to improve and do well in the program and in school, they are allowed to continue in Touchstone through high school. Volunteers are needed to serve as mentors and help students climb. Training is provided. For more information, call 606-1818 or go to www.touch stoneyouth.org.

Volunteers and fellow climbers shouted words of encouragement. He faced the wall again and climbed to the top. His friends cheered.

That was the easy part. Coming down was a little tougher. He had to trust Hiawatha Bouldin, a volunteer holding his rope on the floor below. The boy couldn’t bear to let go of the climbing wall holds.

I visited the Touchstone Youth Project, a nonprofit supported by Rocktown Climbing Gym in downtown Oklahoma City. Underprivileged students come there to climb for free and work with mentors.

The day I visited, the climbers were from the Oklahoma City Indian Clinic Turtle Camp, a diabetes prevention summer camp for kids age 8 to 11. Volunteers who assist climbers need certification, so all I did was cheer from the sidelines.

When the morning climb began, most of the students were quiet and shy. But within minutes of climbing, everyone was smiling, chatting and sweating. Spider-Man kid wasted no time moving on to bigger challenges and he encouraged fellow campers to do the same.

That eagerness and bravery is a side effect of climbing and working with positive mentors. Students who come through the Touchstone program learn strategy, focus and goal setting, in addition to the skills of rock climbing, said Lisa Gibson, a partial owner of Rocktown Climbing Gym.

"Climbing can transcend just climbing for physical exercise,” Gibson said. "There are a lot of parallels to life that climbing reiterates.”

So for many kids, it’s more about feeling like Spider-Man than just climbing like him.

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