Ferncliff Nature School

Description

Ferncliff is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization located just ten miles west of Little Rock, Arkansas. This year we celebrated our 81st birthday! We were founded in 1937 as a place for youth and adults to gather and experience creation in community with one another

Our mission is to create positive change in the world by opening eyes, minds, and hearts to God’s transforming love.

There is a lot going on at Ferncliff! Over the years we have grown into a multi-faceted organization that has branched in many ways beyond a typical camp and conference center. Today we are a:

The heart and soul of Ferncliff is undoubtedly our summer camp program. From late May to early August, we welcome over 1,600 kids and youth from pre-k to 12th grade to participate in camps designed around having fun, growing as an individual, and growing as a community.

We hire about 40 young adults each summer to compose our summer staff; they come from all over the world to serve our campers and form our camp community.

Activities include hiking, swimming, canoeing, kayaking, fishing, large group games, sand volleyball, mountain biking, mountain boarding, crafts, large group worship, small group Bible study, games, orienteering, campfires, special events and more.

Large group games

The goal of Ferncliff’s camp programs is to guide children and youth towards a life of caring to the earth, others, and themselves. After a week of camp, campers of all ages at Ferncliff will:

Expand their independence
Strengthen their sense of identity
Develop interpersonal skills
Interact with creation
Explore their Christian faith

As a retreat and conference center, we focus on hospitality, sustainability, and outreach and offer a great setting for events involving youth or adults. We take pride in being a place that serves those who serve others in our community. Our conference center can accommodate groups of up to 150 and our youth facilities can also accommodate 150.

We have a wide variety of meeting and lodging options including 42 hotel rooms, 12 cabins, 25-bed eco center, and a 25-bed retreat house. Our property spans over 1200 acres, and we’re far enough from town to feel like you’re getting away, yet 15 minutes from Little Rock. Fiber optic wireless internet access is available throughout all meeting rooms and lodging.

Click here to view our interactive map to get a bird’s eye view of Ferncliff.

Our nature preschool is the first of its kind in the state of Arkansas. Our mission is to provide the highest quality child centered education, while strengthening the child’s connection with the natural world through daily immersion and discovery in nature.

Our classes are made up of 3 to 5 year olds who are ready to make a deeper connection to the natural world. Students spend 75% of their time outdoors and are “nomadic” in nature, as we see where the wind leads. We offer a Full-Time, MWF, and T/TH class option. We maintain a 1:6 teacher to student ratio, and a small class size of 12 students per day.

The curriculum is comprehensive and developmentally appropriate and emphasizes on a child’s connection with nature. The program follows the forest kindergarten model and is “child lead” with teachers acting as facilitators for learning. Children enrolled in our program come dressed appropriately for the weather of the day. Daily activities include nature walks, group meetings, interacting with farm animals in the onsite garden, observing the changes of the season, creating natural structures, and using natural materials to create works of art.

Ferncliff is unique in having its own 10,000 Disaster Assistance Center, commonly referred to as “the DAC.” The DAC has a covenant relationship with Church World Service (CWS) and Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA). For CWS the warehouse is one of two centers designated to receive CWS Gift-of-the-Heart kits from churches around the country.

Churches closer to Arkansas can send to Ferncliff’s DAC and churches closer to Maryland can send to the New Windsor Service Center or there are smaller depots in churches on the east coast. For PDA, the DAC serves as their national warehouse for tools and equipment used in the PDA volunteer villages around the country.

Volunteers receive/record the incoming kits, open, inspect, re-box, weigh, label, strap, palletize and shrink wrap the pallets so they are ready for reshipment. We welcome volunteers and mission teamsthroughout the year to help sustain this ministry.

Below you can get a 360 degree glimpse of our warehouse.

Disaster assistance isn’t the only thing you’ll find in the warehouse. It’s also home to a community redistribution program called “Sharing the Goods” that allows organizations to acquire products at discounts averaging 85%.

Through a non-profit called Good360, the nation’s leader in product philanthropy, Ferncliff is a Community Redistribution Partner (CRP). As a CRP, Ferncliff is able to receive product donations from companies like Home Depot, Pottery Barn, Grainger, Tempur-pedic, etc. These products can then be shared with churches and non-profits for pennies on the dollar. If you are a non-profit or church and would like to join the local network and be eligible for these discounted products, fill out this online application.

Ferncliff also has been able to help save local non-profits nearly $100,000 dollars annually through program.

The Young Adult Volunteer (YAV) program is an ecumenical, faith-based year of service in sites around the world and across the United States — and Ferncliff just happens to be one of them! YAVs accompany local agencies working to address root causes of poverty and reconciliation while exploring the meaning and motivation of their faith in community with peers and mentors.

Being a Young Adult Volunteer means living a year you’ll never forget. What do YAVs do? Typically, they participate in the following:

They serve for one year in communities of need in the United States and around the world.
They meet regularly for prayer and Bible study.
They work with mentors to explore and grow in their expression of their Christian faith and
They practice simple living and build each other up as disciples of Jesus.
They are supported in their faith journey through orientation and an end-of-term debriefing event.

The focus of the Little Rock site is on living sustainably on the earth, living compassionately with neighbors, and living faithfully in community and congregation. These themes interact as sustainable and compassionate living calls us to examine cultural values and appreciate global interconnectedness. Engagement with local outreach ministries broadens comfort zones and helps identify root causes of homelessness, food insecurity and poverty, be it of resources or of spirit. Faith is then practiced, stretched and better understood in both the intimacy of the YAV household and the larger gathering of the local congregation and community.

Questions? Or want to come out for a tour? We’d love to show you around. Give our office a call at (501) 821-3063.