Cultivate a relationship with nature with the Friends' Summer Nature Day Camp

Human health depends upon a healthy environment. That is the underlying principle which has guided the Friends' mission - to connect people to Tryon Creek State Natural Area and cultivate a lifelong relationship with nature - for more than 40 years.

The Friends believe that we need to "know" the land upon which we depend for survival. We need to understand how its ecosystems function and how they work together. We need to recognize the relationship that inhabitants have with the land, be they the fox, the robin, the newt, or the human being. If we know the land, we can understand it. When we understand it, we are compelled to conserve, protect, steward, and respect it.

Access to that knowledge begins the moment each of us first sets foot upon a forest path, in a mountain stream, or in a country meadow.

Tryon Creek State Natural Area is the ultimate outdoor classroom. In this classroom, knowledge of the land is awakened and encouraged. With regular cultivation that knowledge flourishes. It grows and expands and fills the human mind and heart with inspiration, peace, energy, and a sense of connectedness to the natural world. Connectedness becomes familiarity. Familiarity becomes "knowing". We experience a sense of purpose that helps ground us as we experience the awe, majesty, and transcendence that occurs when we realize that everything - all of it - is interwoven. We realize that each of us plays a part in it and each of us has a responsibility for the part we play.

Every summer, the Friends of Tryon Creek share the experience of Tryon Creek as a living classroom with children through our Summer Nature Day Camp program. Each child that participates, be they four or 12 years old, comes to the forest innately ready to connect deeply to the natural world around them. Through play, activities, hikes, and hands-on experience with nature, campers gain a sense of themselves in the wild world, of their sense of place and their relationship with all living things.

Give your child the experience of a lifetime and enroll them in the Friends of Tryon Creek's Summer Nature Day Camp today: www.tryonfriends.org