🎯 Our Mission
Our mission
Kids from every side of a war, learning to survive together.
Smoky Trail Rangers teaches simple, free safety skills to children in every language, with no sides, no flags and no blame.
Who we serve and what we make
- Children living through war, disaster or displacement, and the grown-ups who care for them.
- 9 languages: English, Arabic, Spanish, Persian, French, Hebrew, Haitian Creole, Russian and Ukrainian.
- Cartoon episodes: 8 Water Week episodes so far.
- Rangers Radio: short audio episodes for community radio and shortwave.
- Offline kits: small videos, radio and cards that work with no internet.
- Ranger Field Cards: picture cards kids can follow even before they can read.
- The Ranger Handbook and age books, from Sprouts (ages 5–7) to Trailblazers (ages 14–17).
- Bedtime stories.
Where the money goes
- So far: $35 to file our California nonprofit papers (Oct 20, 2026) and $19.06 for our web addresses.
- Next: $275 for the IRS form 1023-EZ and $50 for California’s charity registration (CT-1). About $380 for nonprofit filings in year one.
- Running costs: about $7 a month for voices, the website and state renewals.
- The work is done by volunteers. Our founder logged 37 volunteer hours on Oct 19–20, 2026 alone.
Growth: our goals (estimates)
- Daily Rangers Radio on shortwave to Ukraine and Europe: about $91 a month (estimate).
- Solar or crank radios for children and classrooms: about $50 per radio (estimate).
- New languages, such as Burmese, Pashto, Somali and Dari, and more episodes.
- Year-one goal for everything: about $8,800–20,600, including 100 radios (estimate).
Radio and TV
- We aim to work with community, AM and shortwave radio stations around the world.
- We ask stations in war-affected countries to air our episodes for free ($0 airtime).
- TV and streaming are a future route we are exploring.
Why we need your support
- We are a California nonprofit (pending). Nonprofit number coming soon. Gifts are not yet tax-deductible.
- Every partner and every gift helps a child learn to stay safe. To help, visit our Partners and Sponsors pages.
Progress so far
Shortwave radio, month 1 (about $91 a month) (estimate)
$91 of $91 · 100%
First month covered by our founder.
Radios for kids (about $50 each) (estimate)
0 of 100 radios · 0% · 1 of 100 radios pledged
1 shortwave radio pledged by our founder.
Nonprofit filings: IRS 1023-EZ $275 + California CT-1 $50
$0 of $325 · 0%
Still to do.
Already paid: California filing $35 + web addresses $19.06
$54.06 of $54.06 · 100%
Done.
Year-one goal: $8,800–20,600 (estimate)
$145.06 of $8,800 · 1.6%
Progress toward the low end, counting only the real money above.
📻 Rangers Radio: where we're headed
Coming soon — seeking airtime partners
Rangers Radio is coming to shortwave and local radio for children in:
- Sudan
- Afghanistan
- DR Congo
- Myanmar
- South Sudan
- Mali
- Somalia
- Burkina Faso
- Haiti
- Ukraine
- Gaza & West Bank
- Lebanon
- Yemen
- Syria
- Ethiopia
- Nigeria/Lake Chad
