Each spring, I pile blossoming plants into the back of my car and those of every family member and friend I can recruit, and begin to caravan the fruits, vegetables, and flowers from my backyard in Ann Arbor to Camp Michigania, where they will find their new home in themed beds in the community garden.
My personal interest in sustainability began and has grown from 15 seasons of teaching and leading at Michigania, facilitating kids and adults connecting to the outdoors, enjoying the gorgeous water and woods of Walloon. I have come to experience how essential outdoor education is through my own learning and joy at Camp, my career as a teacher, and in my parenthood journey of two young toddlers who thrive most in forest school and in being eternally muddy. My gardening passion came from a COVID-19 lockdown hobby that turned into a full home-growing setup and greenhouse with more than 100 plant varieties and counting. For three years now, I’ve started seedlings at home and brought them to Michigania at the beginning of the camp season.
Sustainability efforts and education have been a part of Camp Michigania since its creation. Campers and staff have poured their passion for the environment and the place into every part of its experience and programs. In recent years, I’ve found joy in renovating and refreshing the Camp garden to make it a flourishing community learning space. Additionally, it’s been incredibly impactful for the program to prioritize our collaboration with Eric Hemenway, from the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa, to create engaging, thoughtful, and place-based experiences that center Indigenous culture and wisdom.
Each week during the summer, campers can take sustainability workshops to learn how to make paper, soap, pickles, tea, and more — using our garden resources when able. Kids and adults learn to identify plants, taste Camp-grown food, experience the Three Sisters Garden where we grow corn, beans, and squash, and learn about the pollinators and creatures that call the garden home. It’s a joyful sight when the preschoolers come for snack time and chomp the snap peas and cherry tomatoes straight off the plant.
Camp Michigania is committed to being a sustainable living and learning community. Camp staff bring their own research and experiences to the program design. They lead workshops, activities, and educational hikes on topics including environmental protection efforts, forestry, sustainable lifestyle swaps, invasive species, native plants, bugs and animals, watershed protection, geology, and more. We collect food waste in the dining hall which is then processed and used as compost by our farmer neighbor, Dave Skornia, who practices sustainable and regenerative farming. We reuse and recycle resources and items whenever we can, and have a robust recycling program. We don’t do everything perfectly, but we keep trying and learning.
How lucky we are to breathe the fresh air, smell the wildflowers, swim in Walloon Lake, and walk under the trees at Camp Michigania — the environment is a huge part of what makes it such a special and connected experience for so many campers and staff. When we all do our part to care for the environment and each other, our community can truly thrive. There’s nothing more important than working in pursuit of protecting natural spaces where we can all learn, grow, and belong for years to come.
Kelley Stearns, MA’19, is the associate director of Camp Michigania.
