“Our program has grown so much over our first year.”
Forest & Farm is a nature-based children’s program located right here in Cadillac.
“Here we teach children how to grow their own food, and create sustainable proteins, and then those vegetables and the proteins turn right back around and grow the children. People here didn’t even know that this existed. They didn’t even know that there were schools like this in other places.”
Mary Galvanek runs Forest & Farm with the help of her assistant Emily Ruppert.
“There’s a lot more we get to do because we’re not in public schools. And we get to alter it to how kids learn, they learn so many different ways that we can kinda help each kid out in that way,” says Ruppert.
It’s a unique approach to education that combines early childhood and environmental education.
“We have children from ages 2 to 10. We get to utilize 4 acres of Forrest and 2 acres of farm fields as well as our chicken coupe and our pig pen.”
Julian DeSeguin, a student at Forest & Farm says, “I really like feeding and watering the chickens in the morning.”
“We also do abide by all of the states standards with our regular core curriculum, and we do that in a homeschool co-op style with the parents of Forest & Farm,” says Galvanek.
The children experience a curriculum that’s really one of a kind.
“Our mandarin teacher Skypes in from Taipei, we also have German, our German teacher skypes in from Madrid so after our German lessons we get live tours of the Madrid square. We also bring in Melissa Kendal and Dr Hayes come in to teach us human body as well as French. And then we partner with the 4-H program, the Missaukee and Wexford conservation district, we also partner with the MSU extension and all of their educators come out here on the farm to work with us to teach the kids about nature.”
Charlie Kendell shares his excitement with us, “I can’t wait for Mandarin, that’s going to be really fun, and we’re already starting French. Comment allez-vous is how are you in French.”
Forest & Farm is described as a tight-knit community, that allows the children to have a more hands-on learning experience with their teachers and their natural surroundings.
“Just the wonder when they see the baby piglets come onto the farm, when the baby chicks came home, or when they finally get their tomato plant to produce tomatoes, or they pull a giant carrot from the ground. The wonder in everybody’s eyes and the education I know that they’re getting it makes it all worth it,” says Galvanek.
Another student, Alyssa Denney, describes one thing she really enjoys, “When it’s snowy, some of the time we get to go in the woods and do a walk and that’s probably my favorite part because it’s peaceful and quiet and there’s a lot of nature out there.”
“Watching them grow and I feel like they’ve all taken tremendous leaps with their schoolwork, social skills, friendships, life skills in general. I think that’s been the coolest part, watching them grow up,” says Ruppert.
Being in a small town where local farms are important,
Mary also runs the Cadillac Farmers Market where she has connected with local farmers in our area.
“I have canned hundreds or quarts of vegetables and frozen hundreds more for us to eat throughout the winter. We also have made spaghetti sauce and tomato soup, my mom makes all of our jam, Sarah Yoder out in Tustin is our baker and she bakes all of the things for the school. We source locally, we talk about the benefits of that in terms of the nutrition that we will take into our bodies as well as the footprint that we’re leaving behind ourselves.”
Mary’s also leaving an imprint on the children and families in our community.
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