Nearby Nature

Network Charter School: Nearby Nature offered classes throughout the academic year for NCS an alternative public charter school serving students in grades 7-12. These classes served the school's up to 120+ students and included everything from nature literature to field biology to outdoor physical education. Classes were entirely in person in 2022.

Nature Schooling: Because they have been so popular we continued to offer our relatively new initiated in 2020 in-person Nature School Programs for children in 2022 -- Natural Neighbors After School for 6-10 year olds twice a week and Wonder Keepers preschool programs for 4-5 year olds one to three times a week in Alton Baker Park. These all outdoor nature-science based and COVID-safe programs served kids throughout the school year. New in the Fall of 2022 our Wonder Keepers preschool expanded from one to three mornings a week. This program was very popular and was scheduled to continue into 2023. Volunteers donated 262 hours to these programs in 2022. The value of this time at the 2022 rate of $31.80 hour is $8332. As part of Nature Schooling we also emailed interested members and friends science-nature Explore Activities through August 2022.

Summer Daycamps: We had 640 enrollments in 57 camps during the summer of 2022 our largest enrollment ever! Our camps provided kids from 3-11 years old with hands-on COVID-safe outdoor experiences focused on a variety of nature and conservation-themed topics -- from bugs to bikes rivers to rocks. All camps took place outdoors in local parks including Alton Baker Park and our Learnscape as well as Mount Pisgah Arboretum and Hendricks Park. This year as in the past we hosted multiple bilingual Spanish-English camps. Twenty-two children that requested scholarships received a total of 30+ scholarships through our Every Child Outside Fund community partner support and grants total $3,500+. Note that these fund releases which are not reflected in income here supported this program. Also note support for this program included over $80,000 in fee income that was paid by the 4J School District which served as scholarship support for many kids through a Summer Learning Grant and is part of our Government Grant income. Nine teen Outdoor Leaders plus 12 adult volunteers interns helped support these programs for a total of 2,160 hours. The value of this time if it were paid at the 2022 rate of $31.80 hour is $68,688! This summer we were also able to offer small stipends to our nine interns and five of our Outdoor Leaders. This made assisting with our programs accessible to more young people.