Our Programs
Upcoming Supported Programs
Building Rooted Life Backwards
Before there could be a program, Austin spent more than a year obsessing over one question:
What does a young person actually need to become a confident, capable adult?
She wrote down everything she could think of—confidence, friendships, independence, self-awareness, resilience, life skills, emotional intelligence, responsibility, direction, community, practical skills, something to care about—and covered the walls in sticky notes like a slightly unhinged true-crime detective. Eventually, she realized almost everything on those walls came back to four things.
SELF
Know yourself.
BELONGING
Find your people.
CAPABILITY
I can do this.
PURPOSE
Find your path.
These became the foundation of Rooted Life Adventures.
Then came the harder question...
How do you actually build them?
Our answer: We use 8 components to reverse engineer a sense of self, belonging, capability, and purpose.
INDEPENDENT LIVING
Because nobody magically wakes up knowing how to be an adult.
Students live together in a real home where they learn what it actually takes to run one—meal planning, grocery shopping, budgeting, cooking, cleaning, laundry, schedules, and learning how to be a good roommate.
These aren't chores around the edges of the program. They're part of the program. Skills are taught. Skills are practiced. Skills become habits.
BUILDS → CAPABILITY + BELONGING
COMMUNITY
Because belonging isn't something you find. It's something you help build.
Group living is at the heart of RLA. Students cook together, contribute to the house, laugh together, navigate conflict, repair relationships, communicate, solve problems, and learn how to be someone other people can depend on.
Over time, a group of strangers becomes a community.
The more you contribute to a community, the more you belong to it.
BUILDS → BELONGING + SELF
ADVENTURE
Because confidence is earned.
Learn to surf. Climb the mountain. Go whitewater rafting. Try something you've never done before. Do the thing that makes you nervous and discover that you can handle it.
Adventure gives students repeated opportunities to work through discomfort, solve problems, take healthy risks, and experience themselves doing hard things.
Confidence doesn't come from being told you're capable. It comes from repeatedly proving to yourself that you are.
BUILDS → CAPABILITY + SELF
VOLUNTEER
Because contribution creates belonging.
We don't want students to simply travel through a community as tourists. We partner with local organizations so students can contribute to the places they're living—whether that's supporting families, working with animals, helping on farms, caring for the environment, or serving alongside local organizations.
Being useful matters. Contributing gives students a way to connect with people and places beyond themselves.
BUILDS → BELONGING + PURPOSE
CULTURAL IMMERSION
Because sometimes you have to leave your world to see it differently.
Students experience the traditions, values, food, history, people, and everyday life of another culture—not just the tourist version of it.
Experiencing different ways of living expands their worldview, challenges assumptions about how life is "supposed" to look, and gives them a new lens through which to understand both the world and themselves.
BUILDS → SELF + BELONGING
WELLNESS
Because becoming independent doesn't mean never needing support. It means learning how to support yourself.
Our on-site Wellness Coaches are licensed mental health professionals who provide in-the-moment guidance and support as real life unfolds. Weekly wellness workshops help students better understand themselves, their relationships, their patterns, and the strategies that work for them.
Students have the option to continue working with a therapist at home through tele-health, allowing that existing support to continue while they're away.
We don't navigate the world for our students.
We support them while they learn how to navigate it for themselves.
BUILDS → SELF + CAPABILITY
INTERNSHIP
Because you can't figure out what you want to do with your life without trying things.
Every RLA student gets real-world work experience. For our teen girls, that means working with children through an ESL internship at a local elementary school. For our young adults, internships give them experience in a professional environment while our entrepreneurship curriculum challenges them to imagine what they could create for themselves.
The goal isn't for students to choose a career in ten weeks. It's to start noticing: What am I good at? What do I enjoy? What matters to me? What definitely isn't for me? And how could I use my strengths and interests to benefit someone else?
Purpose doesn't mean having your whole life figured out. It means beginning to know which direction you want to explore next.
BUILDS → PURPOSE + CAPABILITY + SELF
JOY
Because joy isn't extra.
Silly games. Pool parties. Music in the kitchen. Costumes. Inside jokes. Dance parties. Waterfalls. Sunshine. Nature. Being goofy. Laughing until your stomach hurts. We take growth seriously, but we don't think that means everything has to feel serious.
Part of figuring out who you are and what you want from life is discovering what makes you feel alive. Young people need responsibility and challenge—but they also need friendship, play, laughter, adventure, and moments when they're simply having the absolute time of their lives.Growth can be challenging without the entire experience feeling hard.
BUILDS → SELF + BELONGING + CAPABILITY + PURPOSE
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