Our Farm & Wilderness forests are bursting with life as heavy rains and brilliant sunshine partner to promote growth and fragrant wilderness. Staff is here teeming with enthusiasm, great energy and excitement at the prospect of campers arriving on Wednesday at our six overnight camps. At the Barn Day Camp on Monday, the piglet who is growing by the week, grunted a hello to her new camper friends.
We are excited to see you when you drop off your children at F&W and wish everyone safe travels. If you make the trek here with your children, please join us for social hour and delicious refreshments at our welcoming events. For the first session of Barn Day Camp parents, the reception will be held Tuesday morning at 9:30 a.m. behind the Main Office (walk up from the Barn) and on Wednesday for the July Session overnight folks, from 2 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. at Plymouth Notch (on Route 100, 3.5 miles south of F&W’s main entrance and 6 miles north of Echo Lake Inn. The address is 255 Round Top Road, Plymouth, VT 05056). Grab a bite, chat and say “hello” before heading back on the road. We hope to see you!
What’s new at Farm & Wilderness? Our gardener manager, Julie, has worked around Vermont’s late winter and rainy summer (so far) to jump start our gorgeous gardens around the camps. We also enlisted Josh Worthington, an FC counselor, in the past few months to spruce up our trails around the Timberlake and Tamarack Farm property, with help from folks during Spring Planting weekend. This will be ongoing work to help us get into the wild without getting lost.
The Girls Wilderness Program out of Indian Brook will feature archery and blacksmithing this summer during a 10-day adventure on the Ninevah property. Flying Cloud has added new canvas structures to emulate the various forms of wilderness living. SAM campers will contribute ideas for an improved “Mack-o-back” pack out space that Questers need, and Tamarack Farmers will get wilder with more short trips and experiences in wilderness settings. Across the camps, I’ll convene a Camper Council of campers who are with us all summer to meet a few times during the summer with me and share their perspectives on how the summer is going.
In other work, we have begun scanning and archiving more than 2,000 vintage photos from our past, with three camps completed (Flying Cloud, which has its 50th reunion over Labor Day weekend this year, Indian Brook has its 75th reunion in the fall of 2016, and SAM/Questers in the fall of 2017). Watch for our Facebook postings on the Flying Cloud alumni page and help identify old friends or even yourself!
Our Camp Directors have spent weeks preparing to lead Inclusivity and Equity training for staff. In turn, we are helping summer staff facilitate conversations with campers around race, class, gender bias and other topics that pop up among youth and may get passed over, walked around and avoided. Our work has been learning to gauge when to step in, when to observe and when to support young people in finding their voice to support peers, be heard themselves and find the power of their sense of self. (As adults, I believe we are still a work in progress!) We’ve created a link, parent resources, which will help you continue the conversation at home once camp has concluded.
We’re so excited for Summer 2015 and are eager to see you again!
— Rebecca Geary, Executive Director
