Our Program

CORE is a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering youth in the Morganton community through hands-on outdoor education and adventure programming. CORE offers a range of opportunities, including weekly meetings, weekend adventures, service projects, and wilderness expeditions. The program encourages long-term engagement, allowing students to progress through various age groups and graduate upon high school completion. This structure provides participants with a unique and transformative experience, helping them build advanced recreation skills, strengthen community bonds, and develop lifelong passions for outdoor activities and environmental stewardship. Through these experiences, CORE cultivates future leaders, skilled outdoor enthusiasts, and dedicated environmental advocates who will positively impact their communities for years to come.

Weekend Adventures

Weekend adventures at CORE are designed to inspire and empower students, helping them recognize and appreciate both their personal strengths and those of their peers. CORE offers a diverse range of outdoor activities, including:

Rock Climbing
Bouldering
Caving
Canoeing
Backpacking
Camping
Hiking
And more!

These experiences are crafted to build individual confidence while providing students the opportunity to challenge themselves in a safe and supportive environment. Along the way, they develop valuable skills in recreation, resilience, and leadership, learning to overcome obstacles and face adversity head-on. CORE offers one to three weekend trips per month, running from September through May, allowing students ample opportunity to grow, connect, and thrive.

Weekly Meetings

Each week, CORE students come together for a structured meeting that includes an opening circle, discussions about upcoming trips, team-building activities, and lessons focused on recreation skills or naturalist topics. The session wraps up with hands-on activities and a closing circle. Some of the lessons taught at CORE include:

Identifying local plants, trees, birds, amphibians, mammals, and macro-invertebrates
Wildcrafting and sustainable harvesting
Exploring the life cycles of various organisms
Wilderness First Aid
Setting up tents and rigging tarps
Packing a backpack
Cooking with a camp stove
Practicing Leave No Trace principles
Learning bear safety and food storage techniques
Understanding the contributions of women and other historical figures in climbing
Mastering knots & hitches,
Rappelling, Prusiking, & belaying
Slacklining

By meeting weekly, students forge strong friendships and develop invaluable skills. Every lesson is designed to gear them up for thrilling weekend trips or nurture a deep sense of stewardship!

Service Projects

Participating in service outings helps students develop empathy, broaden their perspectives, and gain a deeper understanding of both their community and the social and environmental challenges it faces.

Regular service activities at CORE include:

Food Packaging
Trail Maintenance
Recycling Projects

Through these experiences, students come to understand the impact of their actions and decisions on others and the environment. This fosters the awareness and responsibility needed to shape the leaders of tomorrow, all while contributing to the betterment of the community. CORE integrates service opportunities into the schedule, either as part of a weekend trip or during a special weekly meeting.

Wilderness Expeditions

Immersion in nature plays a vital role in promoting mental well-being, reducing stress, and enhancing overall happiness. Each year, CORE’s oldest group of students, the "Amphibians," are given two incredible opportunities for extended wilderness adventures.

During spring break, CORE takes these students on a five-day backpacking journey. The summer expedition, lasting up to 3 weeks, varies each year but adventures such as:

Backpacking through California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains
Canoeing expansive rivers in Northern Canada
Rock climbing in Wyoming and Idaho

The middle groups, the "Frogs and Salamanders," also have the chance to participate in the annual spring break backpacking trip, along with a five-day summer expedition closer to home.

Spending extended time in the wilderness provides invaluable benefits for youth, including fostering personal growth, resilience, and self-confidence as they face and overcome challenges in a natural environment. It also enhances teamwork and communication skills, as students collaborate through shared experiences and group activities.

Our Team

Whisper Smith Executive Director of CORE

Whisper Smith, Executive Director
Whisper graduated from UNC Asheville with a degree in Environmental Studies. Seeing an opportunity to pass her passion for the environment down to future generations, Whisper began working in countless youth and outdoor education programs, including the YMCA, Mountain Alliance, and The American Adventure Service Corps (TAASC). After graduation, she and her husband Jacob took on various seasonal guiding roles as they traveled across the country climbing, biking, and paddling whatever they could! Whisper has always been passionate about providing outdoor recreation opportunities to youth, especially in the community she grew up and developed her skills in. To serve the Morganton community, Whisper and Jacob helped to create CORE, a sustainable outdoor program accessible to all. When not running trips or teaching weekly meetings, she can be found planning her next big mountain expedition or playing outside. Whisper holds NOLS Wilderness First Responder and Starfish Aquatics Wilderness Lifeguard certifications, six years of experience in outdoor education, and three years of experience in administration and booking keeping as the CFO for adventure design company, Beanstalk Bridges.

Jacob Cioffoletti, Program Director

Jacob graduated from Appalachian State University with degrees in Recreation Management and Construction Science. In school Jacob held a variety of positions that all focused on helping others get outside, including acting as an instructor for Mountain Alliance and French Swiss Ski School, and volunteering for the local fire department. Following graduation, Jacob and Whisper traveled the country working seasonal guiding positions, his favorite being a glacier and ice climbing guide, in both Alaska and Colorado before returning to Morganton to act as Program Directors for The American Adventure Service Corps (TAASC) for four years. A dedicated outdoor educator, Jacob's enthusiasm for getting kids outdoors is also evident in his business, Beanstalk Bridges, which designs and constructs playgrounds, treehouses, low ropes courses, other structures that promote play and exploration for youth. When’s not on the job site or teaching at CORE, you might find Jake climbing big icy mountains or in rapids with a paddle in his hands. Jacob holds NOLS Wilderness First Responder, AMGA SPI, AIARE AVI1, Starfish Aquatics Wilderness Lifeguard certifications and has over 12 years of professional experience in outdoor recreation.

I can't say enough about Whisper and Jacob as outdoor leaders and educators. For the past few years, my granddaughter has been a member of a wilderness activity group that they led, and my observations are based on my participation in many of their activities and trips. Whether it is hiking, camping, canoeing or rock climbing--or simply building self esteem--Whisper and Jacob are not only capable, experienced and knowledgeable, but unfailingly encouraging and supportive of their young charges. The only thing that they expect in return from their students are kindness and respect toward each other.

- Paul Wardzinski (CORE Grandparent)