Help Us Offer a Free Summer Camp

Our goal this summer is to offer a free/donation-based summer camp for elementary students from a Title I South Seattle school. Research has shown the holistic benefits of outdoor education for students’ health and wellbeing, yet barriers of access to outdoor education often include location and cost. We hope to lower these barriers by providing a camp free of charge in close proximity to where students live. In addition, we will be providing healthy breakfasts and lunch in partnership with Seed2Fork who has generously offered to donate their local, organic produce.

Goals of the Summer Camp

The offerings of the camp include hands-on, life sustaining skills as well as social-emotional development. The intention is to weave skills of collaboration, creativity, curiosity, and pride from meaningful work through the process of learning to grow plants for an abundant future. In essence, our goal is to give these students the space and time to explore the joy of childhood in a place that will fill them with ideas of a future filled with care for our planet and neighbors. The practical skills and knowledge of food sovereignty will go on to serve them throughout the rest of their lives, and they will hopefully feel a sense of belonging to return to the Food Forest often with their families.

Overview

The camp will run for 3, one-week sessions spanning from August 3rd to August 21st. The daily schedule will include a work party and a lesson with a guest from the community alongside ample time for student-led exploration and play. During our work parties, students will participate in key components of caretaking the food forest including planting, watering, weeding, harvesting, composting, and anything else the community needs! Snacks and lunches will be supplemented with plants the students tended to so they can experience the thrill of eating food straight from the soil. Guest teacher offerings currently include native storytelling, dance, painting, chess, basket weaving, woodworking, martial arts, and sewing.

This work relies on donations so we thank you for your support!

Update 6/16/26: We're so grateful to everyone who's already contributed to making this camp a reality! Our community came together to reach the initial goal, but due to some unexpected costs including insurance, we've updated the fundraising goal by $1,000. Thank you so much for your continued support!

Help Us Offer a Free Summer Camp

Donate now to support a free summer camp for kids at Beacon Food Forest!