Thanks to Dickinson’s new Outdoor Recreation and Education Room, students are now able to make use of a wide selection of outdoor recreation equipment for only $10 a year.

Located in the lower level of Allison Hall, the Outdoor Recreation and Education Room houses all kinds of outdoor sporting equipment from skis to caving gear available for free checkout to the campus community Patrons must pay a $10 annual fee for borrowing rights.

The space, which previously was not being used by the college, was transformed into an equipment room over the winter break by Anna McGinn ’14, interim coordinator of Campus Rec Programs, and a group of students.

McGinn said that the rental service has been hugely popular in the two-plus weeks it has been open.

“With all the snow in that first week, we’d have maybe 20 people in here a day to check out cross-country skis,” said McGinn, who jointly manages the space with the Outing Club.

Most of the equipment in the space was moved over from the Outing Club’s previous storage space, which, as McGinn puts it, was “in a closet in Goodyear not even as big as half of this room.” Some of the equipment was more recently acquired; for example, McGinn purchased cross-country skis from a ski shop in New Hampshire that sells off their rental equipment at the end of each season.

While the Outing Club will make huge use of this new space, McGinn hopes that others will also take advantage of it, including professors doing research, students on service trips or any student who wants to take an outdoor adventure but lacks the necessary gear. The Emerging Leaders Retreat and the Wilderness Introduction to Life at Dickinson (WILD) pre-orientation programs will also use the equipment in the room.

McGinn also hopes that the room will open up the field of outdoor recreation and education to people of all backgrounds on campus. As she explained it, there are many barriers to entry in the field of outdoor recreation and education, and it can sometimes become viewed as a middle and upper class activity, due to the free time, money and access to the outdoors needed to participate.

“If you don’t have a backpack, you can’t go backpacking; if you don’t have skis, you can’t go skiing,” McGinn said. “But now everyone on campus will have access to that equipment.”

She hopes the Outdoor Recreation and Education Room will make the field of outdoor education appealing to more people who otherwise would not have taken an interest in it.

The Outdoor Recreation and Education Room is located in Room 5 of Allison Hall, on the lower level, and has open hours Monday through Friday. Renting is done either for 24 hours, or for a weekend. If you want to reserve equipment, or have other questions, you can reach the Outdoor Recreation and Education Room at [email protected], or by calling (717) 245-1821.