Darryl Calloway, Millington, Md.

Twenty years ago, social studies teacher Darryl Calloway created the Ecology Corps at Sudlersville Middle School. He has introduced hundreds of students to the outdoors. “Our goals are to educate our youth about the needs of the habitat and to actively involve them in the restoration process,” says Calloway. After school and on weekends, he has led students in building wood-duck nesting boxes, testing river water quality, and raising native trees to transplant to public land.

Al and Lorri Menard, New Boston, N.H.

The Menards—both of whom have full-time jobs—have spent the past 22 years volunteering as hunter-education instructors with the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department, teaching a total of 10 courses each year. The couple have also spent 17 years co-teaching introductory firearms and orienteering courses at three-day Becoming an Outdoors-Woman (BOW) workshops. “In my mind, BOW is probably the best thing going in outdoor education today,” says Al. “We’re there to give back to our hunting community and make sure the woods are safe,” says Lorri. “It’s an investment in the future of the sports.”

John Sferazo, Huntington Station, N.Y.

Since suffering physical and emotional trauma as a Ground Zero volunteer on 9/11, Sferazo has worked to provide free hunting opportunities for first responders and veterans. With the support of 30 organizations, his nonprofit group Ameri-can Greenlands Restoration Inc. has turned a former 1,000-acre asphalt plant site in Maine back into forest habitat. “I know the healing benefits of the outdoors,” he says, “and I wanted to create something that would help people like me to recover.”