It is with profound gladness and appreciation, celebration and abiding love that I share with you today that Nature Camps will be closing permanently; after 46 years of service, I have decided to retire.

 

Since 1974, we have welcomed thousands of children and teens to our program, rooted in four incredible locations and including the trails, bike paths, lakes, and rivers all around us.

 

Nature Camps is decidedly unique, and will always occupy a special place in our hearts and minds as we move through the world, forever changed for the time we spent there together.

 

More than just the locations alone, Nature Camps is what we experienced as a community: big circle, and its songs and group games; nature journaling, using natural pigments and writing tools to reflect and create; crafts, finding beauty and joy in the simple; the ropes course, challenging ourselves to look beyond what we thought possible; day-long hikes, making discoveries and memories; family overnights, with their feasts and concerts - just to name some of what we shared.

 

Year after year, through personally interacting with the marvels and intricacies of nature, we deepened our sense of wonder - and discovered the teacher within. 

 

We each had the opportunity to truly feel the natural environment - to draw it close to us, to love it, to understand it as an intrinsic part of ourselves. We built an understanding of and an appreciation for the natural world, and our place in it.

 

Each of us has a role to play, as stewards of the natural world; what a person connects to, they care for. 

 

Looking back over nearly fifty years of Nature Camps, I am profoundly hopeful.

 

My heart is so full. Thank you for taking this journey with me. 

 

Warmly,

Don

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“Morning is glad on the hills. The sky sings in blue tones. The Earth is early blooming now. I do so like blue. It is glad everywhere. When I grow up I am going to write a book about the glad of blues. The Earth sings in green.” 

(Opal Whiteley, from Opal: The Journey of an Understanding Heart)