Regenerative Arts Learning Center & Day Camp!

Hi All!

My name is Ilanna Greenfield and I’m raising funds to get our community more regenerative options for the next generations and beyond. I started a year round kids camp and Learning Center called the Regenerative Arts Learning Center & Day Camp (RAD Camp) for kids age 4-10 in the Mt. Shasta, CA community. We’ve had a very successful first few months doing all sorts of recycled and natural arts and crafts, a beautiful kids garden, newly finished playground, solar cooking, games, music, organic meals and more. This past and first summer we had 4 wonderful and experienced counselors, a junior counsellor and 20+ kids with a waitlist! I’m fully inspired with the desire to share this with our local kids and feel the great response.

Now going into Winter, class sizes have slowed down to very small groups likely due to an array of regular activities, long hours of school and expenses for our local families. Winter here can be much quieter and more stressful for families on a budget. I am working to organise more affordable and healthy options for the Holiday Season while still offering camp days for many children who don't have school on Mondays and Fridays with the 4 day school week many local Charter Schools offer. My goal is to provide after school activities that focus on natural and recycled arts and crafts and always with organic food offered. Additionally, offering evening classes and lectures for all ages is in the works. Promoting options to celebrate the seasons with the health of our planet in mind first and foremost is what I want to share with this community.

The reason I’m putting out a go fund me is because I have a huge investment getting this camp off the ground and even with this incredible group of kids, the cost to feed them all an organic lunch and snack each day, pay a good living wage to counselors and my good sized rent on this building is making it so I don’t actually make an hourly wage myself. I need more sustainable funding options to feel the support for this Center. Please help me keep the dream alive with your contributions showing me this is wanted and needed in our community.

My goal this Winter is to work towards nonprofit status for many reasons including the hopes that I’ll be able to offer free or very low cost camp and classes for kids. Additionally, my big picture goal is to create a space that is not only a kids day camp during the summer but a learning center for after school classes, activities and all age classes of all sorts under the Regenerative Arts umbrella. There are so many community members offering classes that could be hosted here as well as a wealth of knowledge and experience my husband and self have in the Regenerative Farming and Arts world with our 11 years of off-grid farming and Tiny House building in this community. My background is in art, agriculture, and childhood education. My husbands is 20+ years of general contracting/eco sustainable building, agriculture and charismatically teaching all of the above. We have a 2.5 acre off-grid permaculture farm where we homestead, raise our 6 year old, build homes and have taught an array of classes.

The reason I’m offering this Learning Center is because it was a dream of ours to offer these classes more regularly through our farm but because of access (40 minutes from downtown Mt. Shasta), we’ve found people don’t want to travel so far to drop off their kids daily or come and take a weekly class. The location of this Center is just outside of Mt. Shasta city limits and is so conveniently located for most while being next to a large majestic herd of goats, a big field and plenty of outside space. The building I’m renting here is on the same property as the Jefferson Center For the Arts (JCA) and is known for its wonderful theater and music shows in the evenings and kids theater and dance classes and performances. I’d love to be able to create a more sustainable framework on this property like change it to solar power, a solar pump in the well, aquaponics, micro farming and so much more… The potential is endless and the need is now.