Camp directors at Farm & Wilderness are often asked “what do you do” during the non-summer months?
So, in “Top 10” style, here is my answer:
- Watch enrollment explode at Indian Brook and coordinate how to serve all these phenomenal campers. Invite families to help raise a new cabin during our Spring Planting Work Weekend.
- Travel to Boston and NYC to bring a taste of Vermont to F&W families with Pancakes in the Park, where we hand out more than 150 pancakes and a gallon of Vermont syrup. In the Fall, we travel again with another event, Cider in the Park, where we press a few pecks of apples and make yummy cider.
- Plan a pre camp, 18-day staff training focusing in Inclusivity & Equity topics, including race, class, gender, and our F&W community.
- Hire 65 staff who are fantastic role models: About 43% traveled abroad this past year, 22% have Quaker school experience or history outside of F&W, 54% are returning as staff from a previous year, 100% are already asking about what to bring to camp and when they can arrive!
- Shape an Indian Brook vision where we can develop an appreciation of our strength, competence, and creativity every day! Develop new programs for all ages; learn to be a blacksmith, build a tree house, climb the rock wall, practice knife safety techniques, make a garden pole in the ceramics studio, and use our active bodies!
- Hike to the Ridge to check over 400 taps on maple trees and help with this year’s brief sugaring season.
- Say goodbye to swim tests on Opening Day and hello to a new composting toilet just for our pee so our KYBOs (composting toilet systems) won’t smell!
- Welcome 15 lambs while watching Grub the pig gulp the goat’s milk. She gave birth to seven piglets on Earth Day.
- Develop more meaningful activities to provide deeper connections with the wilderness and nature. Create curriculum that connects our Outdoor Living Skills and Trips Program; recruit for another 10-day wilderness trip and apprenticeship for older girls, energize people to chop trees trunks and limbs felled by our Pioneers, which supply our Lodge with warmth on cool mornings. Train our trip leaders and campers to better prepare them for what to expect on wilderness and back country trips.
- Think about how campers come first and connect with all of our families. Easing the fears and answering questions from new IB families is one of my favorite things to do because I get to learn about who will be at camp and how our staff can help your camper find success beyond the registration form. Let’s chat!
So take a moment and think about summer with me because it never ends here at Farm & Wilderness.
Hope to see you in the end of May as you help us raise the new IB cabin!
