GOAT Blog

Check out John’s Mountain Goat shirt all the way from...

Wed, 16 May 2012 16:43:38 -0400

Check out John’s Mountain Goat shirt all the way from Scotland!

We also shipped on out to Australia last week…

If you’re in Greenville, or know somebody who is...

Fri, 04 May 2012 11:41:29 -0400

If you’re in Greenville, or know somebody who is we’re offering a great deal for summer memberships to help allow for more kids to climb in the gym!

This is a great deal/activity for students who are out for the summer! Help us spread the word!

The details: Good from purchase date until August 23rd. Only on sale until the end of May. The sooner you buy, the better the deal.

We wanted to share our newest shirt from The Mountain Goat (our...

Tue, 01 May 2012 14:06:45 -0400

We wanted to share our newest shirt from The Mountain Goat (our climbing gym - if you haven’t checked it out yet, you should).

Most basic climbing knots. But upside down. So you can look down to cheat.

Clever, huh?

get your own at store.goattrips.org!

(Thanks to our dear friend, Matt Moreau for making it happen! We can’t take the credit for it)

That’s right, now all of your GOAT (and Mountain Goat) goods needs can be fulfilled on the...

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 11:37:10 -0400

That’s right, now all of your GOAT (and Mountain Goat) goods needs can be fulfilled on the world wide web. Everything you buy funds trips for kids. Cool, right?

We’ve had a lot of requests for some of our new shirts and stickers, so we’ve centralized it in one common space where you can feed your need for GOAT. There are a few sale items (get them while you can) and a free shipping code if you spend more than $45 (enter WOOHOO at checkout)

We hope you’re as excited as we are! Let us know what you think and what you’d like to see!

Visit the GOAT store!

2012 Summer Guide Training

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 16:15:40 -0400

2012 Summer Guide Training:

If you’ve ever thought “man, I wanna help guide GOAT trips” this is your chance. We’re training (a limited number of) volunteer guides in May. Everything you could ever want to know is at the link above.

Just planting seeds...

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 16:30:38 -0400

Last summer Robbie, one of our interns, and I went on a backpacking trip in Panthertown Valley with a group of boys from a community center in Greenville. The boys we took on this three day backpacking trip were some of the older “veteran” students of the center’s summer program and considered leaders among their peers. Robbie and I went into the trip with this in mind and decided to go a little heavier on the challenge side of our theme for this trip. Our theme would be to teach the boys about how God has a history of leading his people into the wilderness to speak to them- to show them something about Himself or about themselves. From the very beginning of the trip, Robbie and I both saw the leadership qualities in these boys and the “potential” that their group leaders had been telling us about. We spent our time hiking through rhododendron tunnels, catching crawfish, sliding down waterfalls- interspersed with conversations about men like Moses, Elijah and Jacob who learned their purpose, regained their strength, or wrestled with God in the wilderness. We challenged them to seek out why God brought them out into the wilderness and what he might want to teach them, and we challenged them to step up as leaders in their community. We expected the boys to be giddy with excitement after spending the day exploring a waterfall, to open up to Robbie and me about being a leader in their community, and to respond to our challenge, but we really didn’t get this type of response from any of the boys. Mostly we got blank stares and awkward silences in our conversations, and we ended up spending a lot of time dealing with the boys complaints and arguments. This was not how Robbie and I saw things shaping up for this trip, but this is one of the biggest lessons I’ve had to learn working with our kids- not to be results driven.

Often I’ve found myself measuring our impact on these kids by how much tangible change I get to see while were are actually on the trip. I want to be the “harvester”- the one who gets to prayer the prayer with the kid who is accepting Christ as their savior or to be there when a kid realizes he doesn’t have to be a slave to sin. But I’ve learned that what a lot of our kids need is for seeds to be planted. This isn’t as glamorous or thrilling of a side to ministry as the “harvesting” often is, but what’s one without the other?

A few weeks ago I was meeting with the leader of the community center that the group of boys that I went backpacking with last summer were from, and he shared something really surprising to me. As I said before, the group that went backpacking with Robbie and I are considered the leaders among the rest of the kids at the center and have been a part of the center for years, having the opportunity to have a lot of fun and exciting experiences. What their leader told me was that if you asked any one of the boys what their favorite activity or trip that they have experienced over the last few years was, they all say hands down it was the backpacking trip. He told me that eight months later they were still talking about the waterfalls, campfires and conversations we had on that trip. This was one of the most encouraging conversations that I have had with a group leader. To hear that - although we did not get to see fruits of our labor on that backpacking trip last summer - our time spent with those boys was still worth the effort.

We're hiring!

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 10:09:33 -0400

We're hiring!:

Wanna change the world with us? We’re looking for someone to help us grow financially in the same way our programs are growing. This job isn’t for the faint of heart.

We’re excited about our growth and looking for the right person to not only help with what we already do (read: guide trips and hang out with kids) but to develop and execute a full marketing/fundraising plan.

Help us spread the word!

2012 Summer Internships

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 10:25:39 -0500

2012 Summer Internships:

Want to be a part of the coolest/hardest/most challenging/most rewarding summer of your life? Know somebody (18 years old +) who does?

This. Is. It.

Everybody talks about work hard, play hard and likes to do funny things to portray that they do it - but we really do it. There’s no way around it in our work. We work together, we play together, and this summer our interns get to live together.

So spread the word. Applications are due March 31st, but don’t wait that long. We’ll probably have already made decisions at that point. Get it!

Sorry we’ve been a little quiet on here recently....

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:06:10 -0500

Sorry we’ve been a little quiet on here recently. We’ve been really busy getting our newest project, The Mountain Goat, up and running.

If you don’t know what it is, you can read more about it at mountaingoatclimbing.com and you’ll probably get a little hint at what’s going on from the video.

This video was put together by our good friend and fellow worker, Zach Suggs, from our public opening night.

Congrats to our own Program Coordinator, Joey, and his beautiful...

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 13:34:01 -0500

Congrats to our own Program Coordinator, Joey, and his beautiful bride Kathryn on tying the knot this past Sunday!

We have exciting news here at the GOAT offices. One of our...

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 10:36:22 -0500

We have exciting news here at the GOAT offices. One of our closest friends Bill Mitchell has moved his company, Billiam Jeans, into the spare room in our offices! As many of you may know, Billiam Jeans is an organization aimed at fighting sex trafficking. How do they do this? By making awesome pairs of jeans and donating a portion of their profit. Bill’s company was based out of his parents’ basement. He felt like he needed a space of his own, and since we had the spare room here in our offices, we wanted to be able to open the space up for him to use. We’re so excited to see what’s next for Billiam Jeans and we can’t wait to see what comes out of our offices!

Check out Bill’s website and blog to read more of his story and to find out how you can get involved:

http://blog.billiamjeans.com/

On Saturday, October 15th, we hosted our 3rd annual Cornhole...

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 08:59:07 -0500

On Saturday, October 15th, we hosted our 3rd annual Cornhole Tournament at Cleveland Park. The proceeds from our event will help provide funding for our summer programs, which are coming up quickly! Thirty teams faced off against each other this year in the double-elimination tournament, hoping to win awesome prizes and of course, bragging rights. Prizes were provided by our awesome friends at Mountain Khakis, Smith, and Hydroflask. We also gave away free passes for the Mountain Goat and a cornhole set. After a few hours of intense face offs, it came down to the Carpenters, last year’s runners up, and Steve and Rebecca Yates, who came all the way from Pennsylvania for our tournament and were our third place finishers last years. (We take our cornhole seriously here at GOAT). In the end, the Carpenters won the tournament and bragging rights for a year. Thanks to everyone who came out! We had so much fun and we can’t wait to see how God uses your generosity to reach students in Greenville this summer.

There’s no way we could not post this photo. I mean,...

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 10:26:18 -0500

There’s no way we could not post this photo. I mean, it’s got all the neccesities; GOAT sticker, jorts, axe.

Thanks so much for the shoutout, Jordan! Way to sport that GOAT sticker in style!

Need a GOAT sticker? Give us a shout on our facebook page, or twitter and we’ll put on in the mail!

The Mountain Goat

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 14:16:48 -0500

The Mountain Goat:

The facebook page for our newest project, The Mountain Goat climbing gym is coming to life with progress shots, and soon enough some sweet deals for our opening.

For those of you that don’t know, this space will also be open to the public by the end of December, and we’re trying to get the word out that Greenville is finally going to have a climbing gym again.

Tell all your friends and direct them to the facebook page above for updates and free stuff!

AU Missions Fair

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 10:41:25 -0500

On November 2^nd we headed to Anderson University for their annual Ministry and Missions Fair. Ministries from all over South Carolina, North Carolina, and various other states came to AU to provide an outlet for students to learn more about what they do and find out how they can get involved. We got to be a part of it this year! We had a lot of students come by and talk to Joey about what we do here at Goat. We gave out info about volunteering as well as internships and met a lot of interested students. We’re really excited that we got to get the word out about Goat in Anderson and we hope that we get to see a lot of new faces in the offices and on our trips with us soon!

Another GOAT sighting, this time all the way from Dublin,...

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 14:05:09 -0400

Another GOAT sighting, this time all the way from Dublin, Ireland!

Thanks Mary Grace!

The bike shop is now finished! Hopefully you saw the video...

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 14:29:59 -0400

The bike shop is now finished! Hopefully you saw the video update on September 20th where Joey showed us around the bike shop and told us what was coming our way. If not, go check that out now and come back to this post. (We mean it. Go now).

Back then it was just an empty room and now we’ve gotten all the bikes in, assembled, and up in the shop! Check out these pictures for your personal tour of our bike shop.

On September 29th we had our first ever Goat banquet! We had an...

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 14:44:58 -0400

On September 29th we had our first ever Goat banquet! We had an awesome turn out and were so excited to see our family and friends there to support us. For the past month we have been raising money to build a climbing gym in our offices. We had a very generous angel donor agree to match dollar for dollar of what we raised. We set a fundraising goal of $30,000 and got to work getting the word out there. September 29th was our last day to raise the money that we needed for our angel donor to match. Originally the banquet was planned as a way to not only thank all of our friends and family for their generous support over this past year but was also a way for us to continue to get the word out about the climbing gym and give people an opportunity to donate. But the banquet instead turned into one big celebration! We not only raised the $30,000 that we needed before the 29th, but we also raised more money than our original goal. As of today, we have raised $33,472! At the banquet, Ryan shared some vision with us for what’s coming up in the future and thanked everyone there who came to support us. We had awesome food, awesome friends, and an awesome time. Thank you guys so much for all of your support! We’re so excited to see what’s next as we start working on our climbing gym! Check out these pictures from the night and make sure to check back later to see progress on the gym!

2 Ways to support GOAT this weekend!

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 13:55:46 -0400

So, if you’re sitting around thinking, “I need something crazy cool to do this weekend!” never fear, we have options for you. Check out below two events happening in Greenville this weekend to benefit GOAT and send more kids on trips with us!

The 3rd Annual GOAT Cornhole Classic

Come out to Cleveland Park this weekend for a double-elimination style cornhole tournament and a tasty lunch! We can promise a good time and cool prizes from the likes of Mountain Khakis, Smith Sunglasses, Starbucks, Hydroflask, and the Mountain Goat Climbing Gym. $59 for a team.

Run for Hungry Children 5k

On Saturday, the annual Run for Hungry Children 5k is being run at Furman University. Along with the Frazee center, GOAT was chosen as a beneficiary organization. Come on out and enjoy the afternoon. $20 for adults, $10 for ages 6-12

We made it!!!

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 15:30:20 -0400

We made it!!!:

Thank you thank you thank you from the bottom of our hearts here at GOAT! We’re completely overwhelmed right now (and having a dance party in the HQ)

We love each one of you! Thanks so much!