Wild Earth has been taking children and adults out into nature for fourteen years, offering almost twenty different programs throughout the year to suit everyone from toddlers on up.
When humankind walked in balance with the earth, we were part of a vast web of communication. We understood how to listen, to interpret the bird’s song for warnings of a nearby predator. We gathered information from animal tracks and knew which plants would nourish and heal us. We could navigate the land and observed the position of stars in the sky, and we knew our place in it all.
Cut to 2017: In any urban environment where humans gather, they all have little white wires coming out of their ears. Full attention is paid to their personal world—the one on their smartphone—where most communication and information is exchanged. For kids today, this is especially sad because direct learning experiences have been replaced by indirect learning through machines. Exploring, building forts, and playing with fire used to be a natural part of growing up, which was very important for all aspects of physical, mental, and emotional development.
Wild Earth is a visionary nonprofit organization based in the Hudson Valley that provides nature immersion experiences for humans of all ages that reconnect us to our blueprint.
Wild Earth has been taking children and adults out into nature for fourteen years, offering almost twenty different programs throughout the year to suit everyone from toddlers on up.
SUMMER CAMPS
At the summer camp programs, kids learn how to make a friction fire, how to forage for plants for medicinal teas, and how to make a bow and arrow, stone tools, and rope. They play games and tell stories. They explore. They learn how to be responsible toward one another, developing trust and compassion through teamwork.
It is an all-outdoor day camp, offered Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday for two- or four-week sessions. They go out, rain or shine. Each “tribe” of kids (8–12 children) is guided by several experienced instructors who bring them into the enchanting lands in the vicinity of the Mohonk Preserve and the Shawangunk Ridge. Last summer more than 400 kids attended six different summer camp programs in three different locations: New Paltz, Accord, and High Falls. Many kids come from local communities in the Hudson Valley, while others are inner city kids from New York City and surrounding areas.
Learning real wilderness skills instills confidence and encourages creativity and inspiration. A deepened connection to the natural world is developed, and with it, empathy for the earth and all its inhabitants.
Learning real wilderness skills instills confidence and encourages creativity and inspiration
TEEN PROGRAMS
In most cultures around the world and throughout time, there have been clear coming-of-age traditions through which boys and girls turn into men and women. In the Jewish religion there are bar and bat mitzvahs for boys and girls, respectively, at the age of thirteen; in the Latino culture there is a serious religious component to the quinceañera, a party celebration for girls at age fifteen. The rest of contemporary Western culture might have a sweet sixteen party or nothing at all. Wild Earth’s Artemis Moon and Atlatl programs, for girls and boys are specifically designed
for 9 to 14 respectively, year-olds to mark and acknowledge this transitory period into adulthood. Skill-building and other challenging activities help boys develop into capable, competent, and brave young men. For girls, empowerment and self-reliance are forged through a combination of survival skills, natural crafts, and cultivating a connection to self, peers, and female mentors. The programs run for seven Saturdays, with two overnights from October to May. During the summers, 70% of Wild Earth’s instructors are alumni.
These young adults often stay connected to the Wild Earth community and become counselors and guides themselves.
KINGSTON SCHOOL PROGRAMS
Wild Earth has a mission to lead transformative nature immersion experiences that cultivate character, confidence, passion, and perseverance in New York’s youth. This year, the organization brought every 5th and 6th grade student in the Kingston City School District out on field trips in the fall and spring. The educational component of spending unstructured free time in nature is profound. Schools with environmental education programs score higher on standardized tests in math, reading, writing, and listening. For the average American kid there is only about thirty minutes per day of unstructured outdoor time, and more than seven hours in front of an electronic screen. Wild Earth offers a chance for these students to recapture the wonder, freedom, sense of adventure, and empowerment that the natural world provides.
FINANCIAL AID
Nobody is turned away for lack of funds. Wild Earth has provided $40,000 in financial aid for its summer camp programs and $90,000 in the past year for all programs combined.
“A day in the woods is all it takes to rekindle that sense of belonging, neurological calming, the perspective and pace of nature” says Simon Abramson, Associate Director.
You can offer children a profound experience, a memory to last a lifetime, by enrolling them in one of these exciting and character-building nature immersion adventures. And grown-ups, too! We can all reconnect to wonder—right here in our midst!
You can offer a child a profound experience, a memory to last a lifetime, by enrolling them in one of these exciting and character-building nature immersion adventures.
wild earth
wildearth.org
