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Help Feet on the Earth Thrive!

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Organization: Feet on the Earth Programs

Purpose: Bring our dream of providing community and nature-based rites of passage for youth and their families into reality.

About Feet on the Earth

The seed of Feet on the Earth’s mission and vision was planted in 2007 with one week of summer camp for five girls and has blossomed into a non-profit organization  serving over 150 families each year in Boulder County and beyond through our homeschool and after-school programs, summer camps, community events, and classes. Throughout the year our dedicated mentors gather with children to explore parks, open spaces, and nearby nature while sharing the ancient arts of living-with-the-Earth practiced by our ancestors.


How We Started (written by Lorene Wapotich, Feet on the Earth Founder and Executive Director)

I started Feet on the Earth out of a desire to provide girls with what I didn’t receive as a child or young woman: guidance from adults to help me navigate life’s opportunities and challenges. My father died when I was 5 years old and my mother was left alone to raise two children. As the saying goes, “It takes a village to raise a child.” With no village to support us my mother, brother, and I were left alone to navigate our grief and the complexities of the world.

If we’d had the container of community many things would have been different. If there had been other adults to mentor me, help me reflect on my experiences and understand what they were teaching me, and aid me in identifying and pursuing my passions, I would have discovered my path and purpose sooner and with more ease. I grew up feeling that I had to do everything by myself since there was no community to hold me as I went through life’s transitions and challenges.

Fortunately, I had access to nature, which became my refuge and source of nourishment. When I was outside under the sky and surrounded by plants, wild creatures, and mountains everything felt right. Nature was the place I went to for solace and inspiration, and that connection carried me through many difficult times. My love of the natural world rooted in my being and I grew up to become an herbalist and wilderness guide.


Wanting to see the magic and beauty of people’s deeply connected experiences in the wilderness take root and blossom in their lives, I searched for everyday routines to nourish our relationship with the natural world. In my seeking I discovered deep nature-connection mentoring.

This model, also called 8 Shields Cultural Mentoring, is what our staff is trained in and is a tool kit for building relationship with the people in our lives and the world of nature right outside our door. Using this model of mentoring, it quickly became clear to me that nature-connection mentoring provides an ideal foundation in children, and with their families, to support the kind of immersive wilderness experiences young people need to mark their transition into adolescence. From this awareness, Feet on the Earth and a dream was born.

Our Dream

Our dream is to provide wilderness based rites of passage for youth embedded in a nature-connected community built through long-term mentoring relationships.


Children need mentoring and community beyond just their immediate family and at Feet on the Earth we endeavor to provide this mentoring and create that community. Week after week I watch the mentors pour their hearts and souls into the children they work with, striving to give each one what they need. For us mentoring youth in nature-connection is more than the teaching of physical skills. While technical skills such as primitive fire making, plant identification and usage, wildlife tracking, and shelter building are some of the most cherished things we teach, they comprise only half of the picture.

At Feet on the Earth the physical skills are introduced within the context of exploring the full extent of what it means to belong to the natural world and a caring community of peers, mentors, parents and elders. There is extensive research demonstrating that nature and mentoring powerfully facilitate growth and learning and we see that these activities need to be planted in children within the container of community in order to nurture and sustain them. As a staff we spend hours planning, debriefing, trying to figure out how to support the child who is struggling, and celebrating the one who achieved a success this week.


Feet on the Earth is at a crossroads

We sit on the cusp of Feet on the Earth blossoming into what I dreamed it could be — a nature-based community that has the depth of relationship needed to provide meaningful rites of passage to youth. After nine years of building relationship with the land and our community in Boulder County, we are taking the next step towards making this dream come true by starting to integrate rites of passage fully into our curriculum.

“The onset of youth instigates a vision quest, regardless of whether a society consciously recognizes that or not.” - Michael Meade

This year, we offered the opportunity to participate in the first year of a multi-year rites of passage process to the youth in our weekly homeschool program who were ready to meet bigger challenges. Four youth and their families stepped in to participate this year and set their intentions at a Commencement Ceremony in March. We are meeting with the youth weekly and their parents once a month in preparation for a 5-day wilderness immersion that the youth will embark on in July.


One of the youth participating in this year’s rites of passage is 13 years old and has been part of our programs and community since he was 8. Over the past 5 years we’ve watched him grow up and have built relationships with him and his parents that allow them to trust us to guide them through the vulnerable process of a child moving out of childhood, into adolescence and towards adulthood. To be witness to and in support of a process like this is truly a blessing.

Our Campaign

How do we move forward with the rites of passage work while creating a sustainable organization and providing right livelihood for the mentors who are supporting the future generations?

At Feet on the Earth we are creating a new model that weaves long-term nature connection mentoring together with wilderness rites of passage, so that the rites of passage ceremonies we provide for children will be facilitated by the mentors they have grown up with, and are held by the community of people who know and love them.


Already over 70 hours of mostly volunteer staff time have been devoted to developing this year’s rites of passage pilot program and another 400+ hours will be invested before it reaches its culmination in August. With the staff time and other expenses such as food, materials, and insurance, the actual cost of developing and running the program is about $8,000 but we are asking only for a nominal contribution $500/family since it is a pilot program and we want to ensure that this work is accessible to the families participating. Raising the $6,000 difference allows us to compensate staff for the hours they are putting into developing the curriculum and facilitating the three months of preparatory work taking place with the youth and their parents.

Raising an additional $8,000 to reach our campaign goal of $14,000 provides us the opportunity to devote over 500 staff hours in the coming year to integrating rites of passage fully into our nature-connection and community-building curriculum. Our aim is to sequence the curriculum so that each skill is delivered with timing that supports mastering of key developmental tasks at each stage of a child’s life.


These are lofty goals and the reality is that the money our staff earn is paltry compared to how BIG their hearts are, how much they care about the children, and how dedicated they are to creating a better world for the future generations. I watch the mentors give so much while at the same time struggling to fix their cars, afford healthcare, and stay focused on the work that matters most to them while piecing together low-paying part-time jobs, so they can continue working for Feet on the Earth, which currently can offer them only part-time, seasonal work.

 Last year, following my guidance, our board of directors voted to give all of the part-time staff a 10% raise and put them on payroll instead of continuing to hire them as independent contractors. As an organization we took on social security and Medicare matching, unemployment insurance, and an increase in workers compensation insurance cost to make this change. We also invested in more paid planning time for staff so that we could create the best experiences possible for the children, all while keeping our staff to participant ratios 1:6 and often as high as 1:3 to provide most personalized, hands-on learning for the children.

There is no doubt that making these changes was the right thing to do, but we tried to do too much too fast and for the first time in our 9 year history (4+ years as my sole-proprietorship and almost 5 years as a non-profit) we are looking at a budget deficit. We need to raise at least $15,000 to meet our budget for the year or we will find ourselves in June or July unable to pay our bills, make payroll, and continue our work. I take responsibility for not reviewing the numbers more carefully and have learned so much from this experience. As an organization we have done an internal assessment and are creating a plan for how to go forward in a more sustainable way to ensure that we don’t end up in this situation again.


We recognize that we have to do fundraising and more marketing to support this vital work. Do we expect to do all of that with one crowd funding campaign? No. We are reaching out to individual donors, personally and through this campaign, seeking support from the business community, and applying to foundations for grants as part of our long-term fundraising strategy.

The past five months have been an incredible journey for me, testing over and over my commitment to the vision I have for what I want to bring to the world. At times I’ve felt tremendously afraid, wondering how we were going to stay afloat. There have been days when I wanted to give up, but the support of the dedicated people around me, the smiles and laughter of the children, the beauty of the Earth, and the longing in my own heart have urged me to keep going. Since we began on this journey what I’ve learned most is how much people care about what we are doing at Feet on the Earth.

While Feet on the Earth is the culmination of my life’s work and journey so far, it is clear that Feet on the Earth has grown into something bigger than just my offering of love and gratitude to the world. It has taken root and become a place where others can show up to be of service to an eco-centric community, and a home where our collective dreams and vision for a sustainable future can grow and blossom.

Gratitude for Your Support

Like a bright faced youth coming of age, Feet on the Earth is ready to blossom from a growing, jumping, running, giggling child into a self-possessed, full-hearted, giving, nurturing, flowering presence of the community. It is with full hearts that we humbly ask you to stand as supporters and witnesses of this initiatory moment for Feet on the Earth. Your support of our work is an act of solidarity with our desire to recreate nature and community-base rites of passage as a way of life in our culture and communities.

Your support, in whatever form, is of great benefit to us:

° Please make a donation to our campaign. Note: all donations go directly to Feet on the Earth and are fully tax deductible.

° Share the campaign with friends and family via email and on social media.

° Join us for a community event to hear more about our vision and see it manifesting into reality. Visit website  for details.

° Write a supporting comment on our campaign page or our social media pages to give us encouragement and help to spread the word.

With our hearts and minds united in gratitude and in service to the future generations,

 Lorene & the Staff and Board of Feet on the Earth



Testimonials from Parents
“The gifts that you have given Julia (independence, self confidence, awareness of her leadership abilities, myriad of nature skills, community...that's the tip of the iceberg) are priceless. These things enrich her as a person, and will remain with her her entire life.” - Steve

Thank you for all you are doing. We just love you guys. The personal energy you are putting into my kids will impact them for a lifetime!” - Jennifer

“From the bottom of my heart I really want to thank you for the scholarships for my son Nicholas, without those this experience would not have been possible for him or me. Many, many blessings. Infinite love and gratitude to you and all your group.”  - Elma

“I just wanted to share Rose’s first words in the car yesterday: ‘That was the most awesome day of my life.’ FOTE has a huge fan.” - Paula

“My girl left camp empowered, centered and nourished from the earth." - Anglea

“We continue to love what you and the mentors provide to Jameson and all of the children.  FOTE plays an enormous role in helping these kids shape themselves.  Thank you!” - Chris

Donate

Donations 

  • Michelle Apland
    • $100 
    • 6 yrs
  • Gregory R
    • $100 (Offline)
    • 8 yrs
  • Dan G
    • $50 (Offline)
    • 8 yrs
Donate

Organizer

Lorene Wapotich
Organizer
Boulder, CO

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