Lucienne Nicholson, the founder of Inclusive Woods and Us, is helping kids in underserved communities get outside to improve their physical, mental and emotional health.
Lucienne Nicholson is passionate about the inherent human right to spend time in nature. Lucienne discovered her love of the outdoors during her childhood in Haiti, where she spent summers on her grandmother’s farm. After immigrating to the United States in the 1970s, she was greeted with the harsh reality of segregation — nature became inaccessible. Lucienne vowed to fight against this lack of access. She founded the nonprofit Inclusive Woods and Us to help get more kids outside in Rochester, NY.
Connect with Lucienne:
Shelby Stanger:
Lucienne Nicholson grew up in Port-au-Prince, the bustling capital of Haiti. While she went to school in the city, she spent summers on her grandmother's farm in the nearby hills. There, she discovered a profound connection to nature that she's carried throughout her entire life.
Lucienne Nicholson:
On my grandmother's farm, it was total liberation, total freedom. And that's where I discover tall canopies of mahogany trees. I knew that it's hot, hot, hot, hot under your feet in the sun, but the shades of tree will keep you cool and safe. So the closeness to nature, the sense of being held, being fed and being in community with your family. And also, not having any fear that anyone will chase you off or limit your imagination because this is your land.
Shelby Stanger:
Lucienne has fond memories of the summers she spent on her grandmother's land. She felt at home amongst the trees and the wilderness. When she immigrated to the US, she realized that many kids, especially people of color don't have the same access to nature that she did. That's why Lucienne took matters into her own hands and started an organization to get young people outside. When she introduces kids to trails and parks, she watches their relationship with nature change in real-time.
Lucienne Nicholson:
When the children arrive at the head of the trail, there'll be the apprehension because for nearly every last one of them it'll be the first time. And then seeing the wonder in their eyes when they see that first deer, when they see that chipmunk and squirrel for the first time in the natural habitat, I mean, the moment is priceless.
Lucienne Nicholson:
Without them being taken into nature, their imagination will not have been triggered and tap into their very brilliant consciousness that tell them what is possible here?
Shelby Stanger:
I'm Shelby Sanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living. Lucienne Nicholson is a mother, a hiker, a garden and an activist. She's passionate about the fact that as humans, each of us has an inherent right to enjoy nature. Lucienne has built an entire non-profit around this idea. It's called Inclusive Woods and Us.
Shelby Stanger:
She personally knows the impact that time outside can have on physical, mental and emotion health. Lucienne's own relationship with nature found its roots back in Haiti when she was just a little girl. Lucienne Nicholson, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living.
Lucienne Nicholson:
Thank you so much, Shelby. I'm so glad to be here.
Shelby Stanger:
So Lucienne, I did some research on you and I read you grew up in Haiti. And that during the school year, you kind of lived in this busy sort of concrete jungle in the capital city of Port-au-Prince, but summer was spent at grandmother's house in the northeast hills of Haiti on a coffee and chocolate farm.
Shelby Stanger:
So first of all, I would just love for you to tell us a story about growing up, especially those times when you weren't at school, at your grandmother's house. What was that like?
Lucienne Nicholson:
Oh, well, we all want to be popular, so naturally I didn't understand my mother's vision. Her wisdom, I didn't quite get. But we live in the capital. It was very chaotic. And the capital is where everything happened. So it was always packed beyond busting levels. So my mother will take us to her ancestral land, to my grandmother's farm.
Lucienne Nicholson:
And we call her grann, which is in Haitian Creole, which means grandmother. So when we will head there to grann's farm, it wasn't just a farm. It wasn't just my grann. It was all the uncles and great-uncles, aunties and great-aunties. All most of my relatives on my maternal side were living in the hills.
Lucienne Nicholson:
And in the hills, I say that instead of nature, those "learned" people from the capital, they had become so disassociated from nature that they come to have maligning attitude towards people who are still attached to the land. So going there was almost like a secret. You didn't want your classmate to know that you are not heading to Paris, France or Toronto, Canada or Brooklyn, New York or even seeing in the chaotic capital of Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Lucienne Nicholson:
You felt ashamed to say you are going to the hills because learned people, cool people, didn't go to the hill. But once we get there, I remember the freedom that I will encounter being there in my grandmother's land and feeling total freedom because the capital, my parents took us there because that where you have access to education.
Lucienne Nicholson:
If you want a K–12 and beyond education, Haiti at the time was not fully developed. So if you really wanted your child to have a learned experience and possibly find a gateway to be an immigrant to a country with more material gains, then you wanted to be in the capital. So that's why my parents took me there. But in the capital we were renters, so you have limitations, right?
Lucienne Nicholson:
I can't go on planting trees on somebody's property, right? But every summer, the closeness to nature, the sense of being held, being fed, experiencing nature and being in community with your family. And also, not having any fear that anyone will chase you off or limit your imagination because this is your land, this is your grann's land. So that was my first encounter what true, true freedom feels and look like.
Shelby Stanger:
Do you have any specific memories from grandma's house that you'll just never forget, like a specific day or a specific time?
Lucienne Nicholson:
For me, it's always going to be about the resilience that I learned from nature. I remember my grandmother, she was going over to the next village to visit another family member and then there was a big storm. And the storm was so heavy that my grandmother took shelter under a big tree. It was my grandmother and I. There across from us, there was this row of very tall majestic bamboo trees.
Lucienne Nicholson:
And I remember they were having this dialogue with the wind and the slashing rain and dancing this way and that way. And at some point, the wind won. I thought, anyway. And the bamboo trees just bent to force of the wind. And I remember my deep sadness. And I remember looking at my grann and I said, "Oh, grann, I'm so sad. The wind in the storm just killed the bamboo trees."
Lucienne Nicholson:
And my grandma said, "No, the trees didn't die because they know when to give way. They understood the struggle was for the wind to win. And they know by bending down low, let the wind pass over, they'll still be alive and they can rise up again, but stronger the next time."
Shelby Stanger:
In her teenage years, Lucienne and her parents left Haiti behind and immigrated to the US to pursue the American dream. She had to say goodbye to her community and leave behind her grandmother's farm. She would no longer be roaming under tree canopies or drinking fresh water from bubbling springs. On top of the culture shock of arriving in New York City, she came to the US at a turbulent time in American history. It was 1974 just after the civil rights movement, schools had recently integrated and the racial tension was high.
Shelby Stanger:
So you eventually had to leave Haiti and you come to the US at age 16, which 16 is not an easy year, especially I think for a young woman. I know there's a lot changing, just growing up as a woman and then moving to a totally new country that could not have been easy for you. So how did you navigate this big move?
Lucienne Nicholson:
Well, this is really a case where you really have to experience something to really understand it. As an immigrant teenage girl, imagine if you can, you're 16 years old and you have a life. You have grandparents, extended family members, you have friends, neighbors. If you are religious, you have your church. So this is your entire world.
Lucienne Nicholson:
And it's about to be torn apart, ruptured within four, five hours of an airline flight. And I left behind everything that I just listed, including my first little boyfriend. And I landed in New York City. It was January, and it was a cold bitter gray day. And I just left the seashore, swinging Palm trees and here, five hours later, I'm at JFK.
Lucienne Nicholson:
And it was really like landing on another planet because at once I lost my language, although I spoke two languages. I spoke Haitian Creole, which I still do. And I spoke French, which I still do, but this two languages just might as well not have existed at all because I landed on American English soil. And I remember losing my capacity to communicate.
Lucienne Nicholson:
And that was the first shock treatment for me. How do you make a new home in a space like that? And I remember driving from the airport to Brooklyn, where we were going to be staying. I remember seeing all of the trees bare and naked and looking very sad. And I was thinking, oh my goodness, I wish I would cut this dead trees that just make it even more depressive to be here.
Lucienne Nicholson:
I need trees that have leaves. So getting to my community, by the time the taxi brought us there, there were no trees to be seen. So landing there, having lost my language for a while. And I didn't like where I was living because not only the trees were looking sad, but I had no trees to even talk about.
Lucienne Nicholson:
I was one of the immigrants from my community who will be bused out from our underserved community. We didn't have good school in our community, the same way didn't have nature around us in our community. So I was bused from my community of West Indians immigrants to a well-to-do middle class, all white community in Brooklyn where I went to high school.
Shelby Stanger:
And this was the '70s?
Lucienne Nicholson:
That was the '70s. That was 1974 to be sure.
Shelby Stanger:
Wow.
Lucienne Nicholson:
I'm just about 65 years young. And I've been in America for 48 years.
Shelby Stanger:
Yeah. That's a really wild time.
Lucienne Nicholson:
Yes, indeed. I didn't know I was coming just at the heel of the civil rights movement and people were angry and the school environment was very hostile. There were parents who wanted to be physical because children who looked like me were made to attend the school that they think should be reserved for just white children inside their own community.
Lucienne Nicholson:
And then we moved from winter to spring time, and then the trees started to flourish. Then you see the early green color of spring which I love. And there was plentiful in the community where my high school was, but not in community where I lived. And once everything flushed out and I see all the beautiful pocket parks that they were near my school, and then the trees that have now, they're in full foliage and the shade coming back and the tree canopies started touching each other.
Lucienne Nicholson:
And I said to myself, "Oh, it's easy. I don't mind living here. I would love to live here. Apparently, my parents don't know about this community. So I'm going to tell them that we are going to have to move over near my high school. And I don't have to be bused out for a long hour or whatever time it was to get in my high school at the crack of dawn."
Lucienne Nicholson:
So when I proposed this idea to my friends who were already living in America much longer than I and those who were born in America who are black like I am and the few whites that were still in my black community after the white flight, then they said, "Oh, you girl, you have to be crazy. You can't live there." I said, "Why not? Why can't I live there for just wanting to live there?"
Lucienne Nicholson:
They said, "Because you'll get hurt. People will harm you." They say, "I like you already. I think you're a nice, nice girl from the island, but my uncle, my brothers, my mom, everybody will go after you. You can't move in our community, it's not allowed in America." And of course, I'm determined. I took it upon myself to still try. So I will call and I have my French sheet, they call it those days accent.
Lucienne Nicholson:
So I call and I will ask to rent and they couldn't place me. Because they couldn't place me, they actually will offer me choices upon choices of apartments so I can move into that green space that I envision I need for my mental and physical wellness. And then I will take my little money and I will get on the bus. I'll tell my parents, "I'm going to get us an apartment."
Lucienne Nicholson:
Because that's what happened with young immigrants, when your parents don't speak the language you become the adult. You become the person tracing the pathway through that American dream for them. And so I told my parents, "I will get us out of here." And after two or three attempts, I learned the sad truth, was confirming to me, that indeed that is a thing in America that my access to nature and green space is actually structurally structured around me.
Lucienne Nicholson:
So this was when I discovered that it's not only housing that is segregated, it's also nature. Because when you put people in a space where they live and you don't put nature around them it is a form of segregation of nature.
Shelby Stanger:
Lucienne started to realize that her lack of access to nature was built into the segregation of American cities. Her neighborhood, which was largely an immigrant and African American community, hardly had any green space. But Lucienne needed to be around trees. Being outside improved her mood, her mental health and her physical wellbeing.
Shelby Stanger:
When she was 22, Lucienne moved to Miami and she was finally reunited with Palm trees and tropical air. Lucienne, especially loved being so close to the ocean. You have this really intimate connection with nature. You've said, "I've told so much to the ocean that it could write an entire series about my life." Talk to me about that.
Lucienne Nicholson:
Just talking about the ocean, if you could see me, make my eyes swell up a little bit. That's how closely we are connected. Nature is holistic, right? It's hard to experience it. But each one of us, when we really open up to nature, we are going to find a little place that is just ours.
Lucienne Nicholson:
While I appreciate mountains, I love everything that is nature. Even in a drop of water or snowflake. But the ocean, the whole ocean anywhere is my healing place. That's where I go. I tell stories. I share secrets with the ocean. The ocean only offers one thing back, its beauty. Its wisdom and its capacity to heal.
Shelby Stanger:
I love that. I think we need to take you either surfing or stand at paddle boarding at some point in your life.
Lucienne Nicholson:
Wow, I would love that.
Shelby Stanger:
The experience of riding a wave in the ocean is pretty magical, but I think that the ocean can really be such a profound healer and communicator with us if you listen and you know how to talk to it, which clearly you do.
Lucienne Nicholson:
Indeed. What I love about the ocean also, I remember when the waves will come in, I lived in south Florida. And I remember finding a heart shaped seed that we have trees for in Haiti, but that don't grow in South Florida. And it already had little pieces of coral that has grown on its surface, and tells me that it's been there for a long time. And it was a particular day where I needed to be in touch with myself and with the ocean.
Lucienne Nicholson:
And finding that heart that came from that tree from my childhood from the Caribbean, and it came through a wave and just landed at my feet. For me, it was significant. So I will tell my stories to the wave and ask them to take them back to the sea, the ocean, and help me to go to the next day unencumbered and feeling a bit lighter by whatever the difficulties were that I brought to the waves.
Shelby Stanger:
And you seem very spiritual.
Lucienne Nicholson:
Yes.
Shelby Stanger:
Where did you get that from? And how does that manifest for you?
Lucienne Nicholson:
I grew up Catholic and went to church, I did my catechism, I did my first communion and my confirmation, et cetera. And I also, I am a child of the Haitian cultural practices of voodoo. And what I mean by that, it has just like Christianity, has many levels, many ways of manifesting itself. And when I say a child of voodoo, it doesn't mean that I was a high priestess or my mother or my father were.
Lucienne Nicholson:
What it means is that we were still connected to that culture and religion, if you will, that came from Africa with the slaves. And the part of it that my ancestors practiced was a reverence for the land, for earth. So to anyone listening who heard the word voodoo and have a reaction towards it as a backward thinking for uneducated people, I'll say check yourself twice, not once.
Lucienne Nicholson:
The thing with the Haitian voodoo practice for the reverence for the earth, for their land, will prevent the deforestation that we see, the destruction that we see, without the presence of the other form of money making and commerce. Which has also invaded the spaces in Haiti, I know that, but it's not coming from these people who actually talk to their trees and feed the ancestors by libation, pouring coffee and hot cocoa and moonshine and things like that.
Lucienne Nicholson:
To honor the ancestors that they feel are gone materially, physically from the world, but still are with them through different form of natural expression. Whether it is that big moth that scared the life out of me when it comes to visit, because it's supposed to be an embodiment of my ancestors, or at night when we hear certain noise and not to worry because ancestors are passing through.
Lucienne Nicholson:
So that connection with practice that honors your ancestors even in the beyond, and that connection with the practice that respect the earth, that will not feed itself until it feeds the earth. That connection with the culture that ask you not to hurt the tree or the plant because you don't know, it could be a house, a place of rest for an entity for a spirit that you don't know yet, I think is a very good way of being because it protects the environment
Shelby Stanger:
From a young age, Lucienne's elders taught her about their ancestors' relationship to the earth. Her Haitian culture emphasizes respect for all living things, trees, birds, even the smallest bugs on the ground. Those spiritual lessons are deeply important to Lucienne. They define her. Today, her reverence for the natural world has inspired her life's calling. When we come back, Lucienne explains how Haitian values show up in her work with the young people of Rochester, New York.
Shelby Stanger:
When Lucienne was in her 20s and 30s , she focused on getting an education and raising her family. In search of the best school district to enroll her kids, she landed in Rochester, New York. It was a perfect fit. Her children would get a quality education and she could explore the natural beauty of the Adirondacks.
Shelby Stanger:
After her kids grew up and left the nest, Lucienne was ready to spend as much time in nature as possible, but she didn't feel safe outside by herself in these historically white spaces. If Lucienne was feeling this way as a grown woman, then she figured young black people must be facing the same problem. I want to talk about Inclusive Woods and Us. Tell me about this organization, when you founded it and how it came to be?
Lucienne Nicholson:
Inclusive Woods and Us is a vision and a mission that was brought to me by structural racism. I was put in that space to do this work because my belief is it's not just to talk about what the problems are, it's to bring forward my own solution. And as I saw the problem I encountered, two things came to mind.
Lucienne Nicholson:
Everything I did at the time when I was between 16 and 20 years old when I was very much determined to see how I can get into nature, including from our meager collective salaries, I would become a member of the Sierra Club. I become a member of The Nature Conservancy, because I see those magazines in the libraries and I will send it for a membership.
Lucienne Nicholson:
And I thought by becoming a member, then it'll validate my presence. It still didn't give me that access. And then I stopped being a member. And all the while, undauntedly, I went about my life. But what was denied to me, was denied to all. I never I forgot what happened to me and I never forgot that I told myself this problem here is a problem to be addressed, to be resolved.
Lucienne Nicholson:
However, in my heart of heart, I was hoping that that will not be a need anymore. And then I can just go wildly into nature and my mind business and have a good time. Unfortunately, after raising my children and turning my idea to my own self now and all of the things I wanted to be when I grow up after 50, there's a knock on my heart's door telling me to remember, remember Brooklyn, remember what happened to me as a young immigrant.
Lucienne Nicholson:
Remember that it is still happening. Remember the burden while black is happening. And as somebody who lives an authentic life, I couldn't move forward with my own dream for myself. So my dream was to go from coast to coast, from England, coast to coast, go to France and go through Europe where I have friends and just for the first time experience what I couldn't have 40 years ago.
Lucienne Nicholson:
That was when my white friends in college, I made in New York City, would say, "I'm done studying abroad, I'm going to write the train in Italy. I'm going to do this and that." And I said, "I too can do that. Age is a number. I can do this now. I could have. I'm in a position to do it now."
Lucienne Nicholson:
But that promise I made as an activist for universal human rights, I know too well that even when I have, in America, acquired some money, lots of education, transportation, friends, what have you. I know there are spaces in America that I can only penetrate under the protection and the gaze of white friends. And I find that repulsive.
Lucienne Nicholson:
It's showing me that my liberation is not complete. The chase was clear to me that I had to be true to myself and I instead of pursuing my wildness, I was going to dedicate myself, at least for a while, to achieving the wildness of others through Woods and Us creating access to nature, for all, but specifically for people who look like me.
Shelby Stanger:
Do you have any stories of kids who've gone in the program and you've taken them and they've been changed or just any stories about the impact of your work?
Lucienne Nicholson:
Oh, this is the biggest joy. From me, is time after time when the children arrive at the head of the trail, there'll be the apprehension because for nearly every last one of them it'll be the first time that they're at the head of a trail. At first, there is, "I'm afraid. I don't want to do this. I don't want do that. This is boring. Why are we here?"
Lucienne Nicholson:
And then seeing the wonder in their eyes, to hear them quiet down. And when they see that first deer, when they see that Chipmunk and squirrel for the first time in the natural habitat, when they encounter a feather or a bird go scooping over their heads. I mean, the moment is priceless. I have had children on our hike discovering for the first time, that they'll want to live in the woods forever.
Lucienne Nicholson:
And they want to know what they can do for a living that will allow them to live in the woods forever. So without them being taken into nature, into the woods, then their imagination will not have been triggered and tap into their very brilliant consciousness that tell them what is possible here? What is next here? And how do you get there?
Lucienne Nicholson:
So I love when they make the connection of what can I do so that, like Peter Pan, I never grew up? I can be here all the time. So that's a part that I like. I also like the fact when they say, for instance, in leadership, I always have the children help lead the hikes. And I instill in them the quality is in good leadership skills. And I allow them to lead and co-lead. The pride that they feel.
Lucienne Nicholson:
For example, one of the young boys who came with us is really tall for his age, super, super quiet and self-containing. And I noticed that, and then he became one of the leaders. When the hike was over, I approached him. I wanted to know if he wanted to share with us how it felt like to be a leader. He said, "I'm always the last one. And it felt really good to finally be first to be able to lead."
Lucienne Nicholson:
And this moment breaks me, not because of sadness, because of pure joy. Because to know that this child entered the woods one way and he's transformed and he's going to always see himself, "I may not be the rockest leader, but I am a leader. And this woman here, this Woods and Us, saw that in me." I don't know it's going to take him, but as somebody who was once a child, I know that is a bit of money in his wallet.
Shelby Stanger:
Today, Inclusive Woods and Us works with local schools and organizations to lead guided hikes and facilitate time outside in nature. Like many non-profits, funding remains an obstacle. Money and gear are always welcome contributions. Still, Lucienne is making a difference. Kids who participate in Inclusive Woods and Us discover the joy, the freedom and the sense of belonging that can be found in nature.
Shelby Stanger:
I think altruism is a really powerful why to pursuing your wild idea. And you know, you have this wild idea of making nature available for everyone no matter what. Advice to people who want to pursue something so wild and big as this.
Lucienne Nicholson:
First thing I tell people, just like everything else that you do, be authentic. Be real in understanding why you want to pursue this in the first place. I can ascertain that you're not going to be very happy for very long if you think it can happen overnight. You are going to discover you're only one person.
Lucienne Nicholson:
Don't do it because it's sexy, because you're going to find out you're going to have a lot of alone time to figure out why you are on this path in the first place. And it is discovering that moment of truth that's going to get you up that chair, dry your eyeballs and put on your boots and stomp out your door, hit the ground again to make this happen, because you recognize the value of your mission and the truthfulness of your purpose.
Lucienne Nicholson:
I will advise people to really understand the difference between a me goal and an our goal. Oftentimes I see some entities masking a me goal inside of an our goal. I know, clearly delineated for me in my consciousness, what my me goals are. So the our goal space is where you, the altruism you spoke about comes through, Shelby.
Lucienne Nicholson:
That's when you are willing to take the suffering, meaning that not enough sleep, spending your own money sometimes, traveling great distances like I do and still feel fired up and you're ready to take on another challenge for your community. So you have to have a lot of energy inside of you to carry this day in, day out.
Lucienne Nicholson:
In addition, you also have to be ready to understand an our mission is actually what exactly what it says, you have to bring everyone with you. It's not about me or my ego. It's about being a model for the community to see how collaboration shows up, how love shows up, how collectivism shows up for the greater good. So we each are going to come into that space of founding an non-profit for different reasons, but understand your reason. So this is what it is for me for Woods and Us.
Shelby Stanger:
You talked about the values that were instilled in you during your childhood in Haiti. How have those values led you to where you are now?
Lucienne Nicholson:
Yes, indeed. My grandmother, as an example, when I came to America, I hear that we have a new thing that leave no child behind, leave no one behind. And so it's something that is new, "Oh, by the way, we shouldn't do that." Whereas, I grew up in a place where it is a manifestation of self, you leave no one behind. You are independently working very, very hard, at the same time you're working with the collective.
Lucienne Nicholson:
Because you know that as we work very hard together, we're stronger, we can help and support each other. I have examples of the leave no one behind. My grandmother had a lot of land. And I remember how there will be a few people, it was a rare event, but there'll be a few people, especially women who are left destitute. Maybe they didn't get married and they didn't inherit land because the land went to the brother.
Lucienne Nicholson:
My grandmother will then invite, I remember a particular old lady of the others named Tete. And my grandmother allowed her to build a small, like a log house, on her land, not too far from us, so she was not isolated. And my grandmother gave her a small plot of land enough for her to grow enough food to eat, for dignity. That's another thing, you have to allow people. Everyone can give something back in the collective.
Lucienne Nicholson:
So Tete will try to do a little work here and there, whatever she can do, maybe help turning over the cacao beans that are drying or the coffee beans that are drying. Very simple things. But Tete lived with dignity on my grandmother's land, and she was fully protected because it was a leave no one behind. We looked out for each other. So when I say leave no one behind, this is how I do Woods and Us. This is how I live my life.
Shelby Stanger:
No one should be excluded from nature's magic. From watching this sun sparkle through the leaves, to seeing a snake slither across a trail, those magical experiences outside stick with us. With Inclusive Woods and Us, Lucienne is working to make these moments possible for everyone.
Shelby Stanger:
Lucienne, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your story with us. Your vision is big. I'm excited to see how Inclusive Woods and Us continues to grow. If you want to contribute to Inclusive Woods and Us, check out their website inclusivewoodsandus.org. If you or someone as access to land and can host Inclusive Woods and Us, you should definitely contact Lucienne on the website. If you want to follow the growth of this incredible organization, you can also follow them on Instagram @woodsandus.
Shelby Stanger:
Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI podcast network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Sanger. Written and edited by Annie Fassler and Sylvia Thomas of Puddle Creative. And our senior producer is Chelsea Davis. Our executive producers are Paolo Mottola and Joe Crosby. As always, we love it when you follow this show, when you rate it and when you review it because we read all your reviews wherever you listen. And remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.