Send 30 Children to Afterschool Nature Program

While planning our upcoming year for our Earth Connectors program, our education team at Piedmont Wildlife Center takes time to reflect on our past year. When we asked each other what student was most positively affected by our program, all of us immediately thought of Chance, a scholarship recipient thanks to your support. With gentle mentoring, encouragement and tweaks we made to our program, Chance transformed from a young man who did not trust himself or many others and was difficult to reach, to someone who became a leader to his peers and a steady role model to new students joining our program. It really solidified the fact that time in nature and patient mentoring benefits the whole person; positively affecting their physical, mental and emotional well-being.

When we began our program in the Fall of 2013 and met our students, we were not surprised to find that many of our Earth Connectors students said they spent little time outdoors. Many of our students said their neighborhoods were unsafe and that their parents or guardians did not approve of them playing outside unsupervised. Our program was really the only chance many of our students were allowed to benefit from time in nature. We began slowly, taking gentle walks around the school’s property and playing nature based games to build trust in each other and their surroundings. We quickly discovered that if Chance was not engaged, or having fun during our planned activity, he could become disruptive and take the focus off of our activity. If you’ve spent any time around children or young adults, you know that there are special kids who have magnetic personalities. Chance was one of these students and we knew that if we could get him excited about what we were doing, we’d hit a home run with the rest of the group.

My co-worker and I took some time to get to know Chance before we began asking him his interests and started to bring him books from our personal collections. We learned that Chance used to camp but had not been able to go in quite some time. He showed a great interest in primitive skills such as; shelter building, primitive fire making and way-finding. We decided that our 4 paths program, which is a challenge and skills based program with a step-by-step process of learning the skills from four paths: fire-making, hunting, plants, and animal tracking would best fit the needs of our students. This program allows young people to progress through challenges of increasing difficulty and provides opportunities for them to mentor each other.

When Chance was challenged, like he was in the 4 paths program, he was focused and determined. He was especially gifted with fire making and mentored other students in the paths he was proficient in. During one session, Chance was mentoring a classmate on fire making and said, "Fire making is really hard.  You must be prepared, and have a positive mindset.  You have to believe you will get a fire."

By the end of our year with Chance, he was a gentle leader, a focused student, comfortable with himself and more trusting of others and his surroundings. I am so grateful that Chance was able to participate in this program because of your donations, and that he stayed with us for the entire year and made the lives of his peers and mine, a better one for knowing him.  How many people do you think he will positively influence?   With your donations, how many more students can we have this kind of impact on?

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Our last activity this school year at Githens was to do a community service project that benefitted students and the school grounds.  The students elected to hang Bluebird boxes on the edge of the natural area at the school.  This project provides habitat for the bluebirds the students had seen flying around nearby, and provides all students at the school an opportunity to observe the birds more closely, learn their habitats, pique interest and build a connection with nature.

Many of our nature encounters at Githens involved lots of bird sightings prompting discussions.  As mentioned in the last report, the students really got intrigued by bird movements.  They found several signs of different species including a few nests that the students continually checked to see the progress of not only the nest building, but eventually to see if eggs were laid, and then if they had hatched.  With the large Citizen Science projects run by Cornell University Lab of Ornithology like, the Great Backyard Bird Count, Project FeederWatch, and Project NestWatch, the students had a chance to record their observations.  Naturally, the Bluebird box installation as a community service project idea was a hit.

The students broke into groups to decide where they wanted to hang their boxes.  They considered the direction the entry faced, ease of access for the birds (meaning the forest edge), and in enough line of site for other students to be able to observe some bird activity and draw interest.  Grace said,"I think this will be a good location for a box because I watched some bluebirds flitting around this area for a while.  They will be close to food and have some protection from the trees." Adrian said, "We picked this location due to the easy access with an open area close by."  The students plan on stopping by during the summer to see if there is any activity in the boxes.

Although we have completed the session at Githens for the year, we still are a few hundred dollars short of our goal for funding it and would like to continue this next year.  Please consider donations in honor of Fathers' Day this month so we can reach our goal!  We are extremely grateful for the support from all our donors.  Because we have been successful on Gloval Giving, we were honored with being added to Microsoft Youth Sparks.  This means we are elibigle for the Microsoft YouthSpark's Bonus Day on June 25!  Our Githen's Middle School Project only needs $548 to complete funding, however, any adiitonal money raised on June 25th will go towards next year's program.  If you can help us spread the word to friends and family, that would be fantastic!  Any amount from $10 to $1000 given from noon to midnight on June 25 will be 100% matched by Microsoft while funds are available, so donate just after NOON to be sure your investment is doubled!.  The project that raises the most funds on Bonus Day will receive an additional $2,500 and the one with the most unique donors on Microsoft YouthSpark's Bonus Day will receive an additional $2,500.  Only online donations (credit card or PayPal) are eligible for matching funds.

Two new projects are also eligible for matching funds on June 25th.  Check out our Elementary School Afterschool Project and our Summer Camp Scholarship Fund

Thanks again, for believing in our project and for giving us great support!