Have you ever seen over 36,000 pounds of food distributed to approximately 560 families in a single day? Volunteers from Cottonwood Institute, Re:Vision, We Ride 4, Elsmere Education, and Google have! This holiday season, these outstanding organizations teamed up to create boxes filled with fresh fruits and vegetables, delicious pumpkin pies, cookies, potatoes, bread, eggs,… Read more »
Written by CAP Instructor Carly Winner The first Cottonwood Institute overnight of the 2021-2022 school year was a success as students braved wintry conditions for a fun night. The AXL Academy CAP class met on Thursday morning to venture up to Cal-Wood Education Center. On the drive up, we couldn’t see much through the fog… Read more »
Written by Chelsea Tossing (Escrito en español más abajo) When we first began the Changemakers program in the summer of 2020, the world felt as if it had been turned upside down. Students had been out of school for months, and the lockdowns that extended into summer proved even more isolating. As we began thinking… Read more »
Meet Dru Falco, CI’s Logistics Coordinator! Dru is responsible for risk management and logistics behind our field programs, from choosing locations to cleaning gear to figuring out how to acquire fishing poles for a trip. If she’s not working on a spreadsheet, you can find her running in the mountains or trying to find the… Read more »
The collaborative Lafayette Stewardship Youth Corps, co-led by CI Instructor Adam Fedyski and Wildlands Restoration Volunteers Project Coordinator Jackie Curry, continues going strong throughout the winter months. While much of their time is spent on restoration and improvement projects for Lafayette Open Space, the interns also had opportunities to participate in two trainings, Leave No… Read more »
2020 has been a lot of things, and while “inspiring” may not be the first word that comes to mind, there were in fact many things to be inspired by in the world of Cottonwood Institute! Our instructors stepped up to the challenge of adapting their programs in a big way, and our students were… Read more »
At Cottonwood Institute, we’ve got reasons to love every time of year. Winter means plenty of snow for building quinzhees, spring is time for projects in the garden (or more quinzhees if the snow decides to stick around), and summer brings us down to Westcliffe for adventures at Mission: Wolf. But our favorite time of… Read more »
We are all changemakers; knowingly or unknowingly, the effects of our actions ripple out, changing the world in large and small ways each day. Every year since 2013 at the Base Camp Bash, Cottonwood Institute recognizes the ways our students make change in their schools, their communities, and the world. The Ripple Effect Award celebrates… Read more »
How about this for a Cottonwood Institute connection? Tess Eckert took CAP at New Vista High School three times between 2007 and 2010 (tied for the all-time record, not that we’re counting). She got to learn from CI celebrities Ford Church and Paige Doughty. And after seven years in Australia, pursuing art, work, and exploration,… Read more »
We asked the students of the Centaurus CAP Outdoor Class a classic icebreaker question when we circled up at 8am in the school parking lot before our winter field dau to Caribou Ranch Open Space near Nederland: What superpower do you want to have? Volar (flying) was a popular choice. Invisibility, mind control (mwahaha) and… Read more »
