TALKS
Ron Griswell & CJ Goulding | Peer‑Powered Healing Pioneers
For Black Americans, barriers to mental health care and exclusion from outdoor spaces have left critical needs unmet. Ron Griswell and CJ Goulding believe the answer lies in returning to what has always sustained us: community and nature. Through their nonprofits—HBCUs Outside and Boyz N The Wood—they’ve built models that transform outdoor spaces into places of healing, belonging, and leadership development. These programs don’t just serve participants—they train them as facilitators, expanding peer-led networks of care that are culturally relevant and thrive outside traditional institutions.
Ron, honored as a BET/NAACP Changemaker, has redefined who belongs in outdoor spaces, while CJ has facilitated hundreds of nature-based healing experiences. Together, they are proving that community-designed healing infrastructure, rooted in cultural wisdom and nature, offers powerful alternatives to broken systems.
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As founder and executive director of HBCUs Outside, Ron has spent years addressing why outdoor spaces often feel unwelcoming to students of color and creating culturally responsive alternatives. His work, recognized nationally by BET/NAACP as a model for systemic change, has connected with campuses across the country and shown how nature can be a tool for belonging and leadership, not just recreation. CJ, co-founder and executive director of Boyz N The Wood, is a trained facilitator and organizer who blends therapeutic approaches with community- and nature-centered healing practices. He has guided hundreds of young adults and men through transformative outdoor experiences, proving how peer-led networks of care can close critical gaps that clinical systems leave behind. Together, Ron and CJ bring lived experience and professional expertise to a shared vision: community-designed healing infrastructure rooted in cultural wisdom and the natural world.
