As each calendar year winds down, Farrington Nature Linc begins planning how to improve, expand, and impact more youth in the next year. In 2014, Farrington undertook an ambitious evaluation of our current programs and developed plans to reach more children in 2015. We know that every child who arrives on our property is offered the chance to engage, connect and enjoy nature; but each child only gets to stay for a few precious hours. Just as they begin to get comfortable in a new environment, their visit is over and we often won’t see them again for another year.

We are confident that we have given them a great experience but we would like to do more!

Most of our visiting groups come during our six week summer field trip program. Each group visits for part of a day during which the children get to play and learn in nature. We would like to provide more to the youth that visit. We want to give them the opportunity for a deeper connection to nature and to themselves, and doing so means year-round programs to serve new and returning youth more frequently.

As an initial pilot of year round programming, we hosted visiting groups during February and April school vacation weeks with great success. So far this year, Farrington has hosted 1,131 children and 138 teens on our property for a total of 1,269 youth. We expect to serve another 160 children and teens before our fiscal year ends in February.

This projected 1,429 children surpasses our prior year total by 200 children, or approximately 18% more than last year!

However, in addition to increasing the number of youth we serve we are looking at what we need to do to make more of an impact on them. We asked ourselves, “What would it take to provide that ‘more’ experience?” The answer we came up with is a three-step plan called “Pathways to Farrington,” that provides ways to connect with groups and individuals to deepen their experience with Farrington, nature, and themselves.

Regardless of the duration or content of the program, the focus is on youth development through the lens of nature. Take a look below to get a small sneak peak of the future of Farrington!

We are excited to move beyond the introductory experience towards providing a wider ranger of opportunities for our visting groups, and we look forward to piloting our first after-school program in the spring!