Building on the success of last year’s Nature Play Day, we recently partnered with the Lake Toxaway Nature Park to offer a special event for children and their families. A joyful group of children spent a morning exploring the garden and learning about pollinators, red spruce, and pond life. There is no better age to fall in love with the natural world, and we are committed to creating those moments.
None of this would have been possible without our volunteers Molly Tartt, Paul Cooper, and Anne Strutz, whose leadership brought this event to life. Their energy and warmth were instrumental in making the morning so special, and their genuine love of the natural world was inspiring. We are deeply grateful for their dedication.
This kind of unstructured outdoor experience matters more than ever. Today’s children spend significantly less time outdoors than previous generations — a shift researchers call “nature-deficit disorder” — with real consequences for attention, emotional wellbeing, and physical health. Time spent exploring a garden, turning over a leaf, or watching a pond ripple builds something screens cannot: curiosity, patience, and a felt connection to the living world.
That connection is the foundation of stewardship. The children who spend a morning here, hands in the soil and eyes on the pollinators, are future scientists, gardeners, and conservationists who will carry this work forward. Raising a generation that already loves this mountain may be one of the most important things we do.