2020 has gotten off to a good start for Cottonwood Institute with the start of our trip season, the addition of our new Program Director, and now two features on CI from local news outlets! Check out these stories, get inspired, and please share with your community!
Communing with Nature with the Cottonwood Institute – Boulder Lifestyle Magazine
From Boulder Lifestyle Magazine’s Sara Strelitz comes this feature on the ways CI’s work is helping students build their connection with the natural world:
“The Cottonwood Institute uses environmental education to foster students’ connections to nature. For many students, this connection usually starts with a simple yet powerful exercise called Sit Spot: at the beginning and end of each sojourn into nature, they are asked to go sit in a spot that somehow calls to them. They use their senses to observe their surroundings: see an ant battle and hovering clouds, hear the wind and rustling branches, smell the various flora and fauna, and touch the dirt, rocks, and crunching leaves around them.
Church shared that students respond very well to this humble aspect of the program, which speaks volumes about how they’re being overloaded in their daily lives.”
Meet Ford Church of Cottonwood Institute In Downtown – Voyage Denver
Executive Director Ford Church gets the feature treatment from Voyage Denver, as part of their “Most Inspiring Stories” series on local leaders:
“I grew up in New Orleans and was involved with an outdoor program in high school that had a huge impact on my life. I learned the skills I needed to comfortably and competently explore the outdoors, we went on some amazing adventures, and the program helped set the foundation for my personal service and environmental ethic, which I have carried with me throughout my life. Unfortunately, my senior year, the administration at the time cut the outdoor program and thought it was too expensive for the number of students it benefited. I was crushed but told myself that one day I would help make a program like this accessible to other students.”
