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HeartField Learning Collective
Seasonal Outdoor Experiences for Youth
HeartField Learning Collective is a 501(c)(3) not-for profit organization offering nature and art-based enrichment and recreational programs specializing in social/emotional health and well-being. Here is a place of birthing new stories; a place to find one’s voice and to speak with confidence in one’s knowing. We are a collective of educators who believe these times call for a new paradigm. Through story-telling, song, inquiry, play, creative exploration and immersion with nature, we learn how to be together in community with compassion and respect for every unique individual, including ourselves, and how to feel alive and well within our bodies and within our human and non-human community.
2025 SUMMER CAMPS
Inclusive community programs within the fields and forests of Whidbey Island
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~ Sliding Scale Fees for all Programs ~
We are committed to keeping our programs accessible to all.
Your payment is a form of reciprocation for mentor and administrative energy, care and expertise, and for the land with whom we collaborative. If you are able, a portion of your fees will support our overall organizational sustainability. We are trusting in our community to reciprocate in ways they can - you choose your rate. We list our pricing as transparently as possible so you know what our need is to continue running these programs. THANK YOU to our donors who make our sliding scale possible and for your honest contribution!
2025 CAMP FEE SLIDING SCALE
​​​SUSTAINING: $500 (supports HeartField’s future)
SPROUTING: $350 (covers camp costs)
SAPLING: $250 (for whom the Sprouting Rate is out of reach)
ROOTING: $50-$200 (supported by our Rooting Fund)
WEEK #1: JUNE 22-26
RISING EARTH WARRIOR CAMP
JUNE 22-26 (Mon-Thurs: 9:30am-3pm)
for children ages 7-11
at South Whidbey State Park and HeartField Knoll, Freeland WA
with HeartField Mentors Bryn McAfee and Lauren Atkinson
Sliding Scale Fees (avg. $350) / Financial Assistance Available
​Calling Rising Earth Warriors!
Join us as we tune our bodies, minds, and hearts to the earth and to the warrior spirit within. What does it mean to walk the path of an Earth Warrior? How do kindness, compassion, justice and honor guide you? What does the earth have to teach us about community, diversity and interdependence? How do we reciprocate? We will explore these questions in our bodies and imaginations as we balance, jump, crawl, sneak and play, encouraging one another on our individual paths. Through games, nature immersion, mindful movement, collaborative ephemeral art projects, song, storytelling, and ancestral skill building, we celebrate the fact that we are ALL connected, we ALL matter, and we ALL belong.
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WEEK #2: JULY 8-10
EARTH CAMP (with Readiness to Learn in Langley)
JULY 8-10 (Tues, Wed, Thurs: 10am-2pm)
for children ages 7-11
in collaboration with Readiness to Learn, Langley
with HeartField Mentors Lauren Atkinson and Rachel Joseph
See Summer Fun Website for Registration Information (link coming soon)
Join us in summer fun playing, exploring and creating with Nature in the fields, forest and streams of the South Whidbey Community Center in Langley. We will explore our environment, listen to the song of the land and the sea to inspire our creativity, in making, drawing and painting our observations, discoveries and reflections. Campers will create community through circle, song and games to make new friends and deeper connections with our more than human community. Come join us and soak up the summer fun!
WEEK #3: AUGUST 4-7
ReMake, ReWild, ReVive
AUGUST 4-7 (Mon-Thurs: 9:30am-3pm)
for children ages 8-13+
at South Whidbey State Park and HeartField Knoll, Freeland WA
with HeartField Mentors Bryn McAfee and Lauren Atkinson
Sliding Scale Fees (avg. $350) / Financial Assistance Available
Be inventive and bold - be YOU in this makerspace, mending, imaginative upcycle camp. Together, and with forest, water, sky, and fire as our inspiration and collaborators, we will learn, play, and invent creative ways to express ourselves through wearable and utilitarian art. We’ll rewild with the land, revive our curious, creative and inventive selves, and make new connections, new art, and new memories. We will utilize sewing and applique techniques as well as binding and wrapping. Embellish your favorite jeans or make something entirely new-to-you. Bring your scraps, buttons, clothes and ideas and we’ll bring ours, and let’s see what happens!
WEEK #4: AUGUST 18-21
POLYPORE EARTH WARRIOR CAMP
AUGUST 18-21 (Mon-Thurs: 10am-3:30pm)
for children ages 10-13
at South Whidbey State Park and HeartField Knoll, Freeland WA
with HeartField Mentors Bryn McAfee and Lauren Atkinson
Sliding Scale Fees (avg. $350) / Financial Assistance Available
Explore the woods with us from ridge to waters edge as we weave a heart tribe together! What does it mean to be an Earth Warrior? How do we share leadership in community and dream in a world that is healthy and a place for all of us to shine in creativity and love? This camp creates an opportunity for tweens to embody their voice, tell new stories and practice creative action. Together, we will play, explore, laugh, sing, create, and hone our skills of deep listening… to ourselves, each other, and the earth. Through games, nature immersion, mindful movement, collaborative ephemeral art projects, song, storytelling, council, and ancestral skill building, we celebrate the fact that we are ALL connected, we ALL matter, and we ALL belong.
About our Collective.
We started in 2022 with just a seed of an idea to gather together in the heartfield and hold our children bravely and gently in these poignant times. Our dream has been to provide a place for them to root, to find roots, to feel rooted, a safe place to feel all the feelings of the real world, and to roar and sing and tell their story and listen to themselves, to their peers, and to the wisdom of Earth, a place to be held and held up and honored and respected for who they are and for all their unique gifts, a place to be creative and expressive and connected.
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Now HeartField is an official 501c3 nonprofit organization with year-round programing, a place to call home, a growing community, and gracious, dedicated supporters.
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We are feeling abundant in gratitude. We are so grateful TO OUR COMMUNITY that has nourished us through these past two years – to our forest community on Whidbey Island and the land at HeartField Knoll, South Whidbey State Park, to our human and non-human community that tended that land for centuries before us, creating a space that is sacred and inviting and full of heart; TO OUR FAMILIES that have supported our programming through enrollment and gifts and dollars and love; to the beautiful unique children who contribute their joy and energy and real-life feelings to the ancestral land within which we learn and grow; to our gracious and talented VOLUNTEERS; and to our MENTORS and mentor families who have shown selfless support through gifts of time and energy and creativity.
Who we are.
The Mentor Collective
We are a collective of mentors who believe these times call for a new paradigm. We believe in and tend to the collective and individual inner wisdom of our children and the earth.
Our Heartwood Path Walkers hold our vision and organizational structure while our Moon Council holds them, advising and tending the greater heartfield. Collective Mentors work collaboratively as independent contractors, facilitating and creating HeartField programming.
WE ARE ALL MENTORS - in relationship with children, one another, our peers, our advisors, our earth. A definition for mentor that we support comes from the European Mentor and Coaching Centre Global which states: “Mentoring is a learning relationship, involving the sharing of skills, knowledge, and expertise between a mentor and a mentee through developmental conversations, experience sharing, and role modeling. The relationship may cover a wide variety of contexts, and is an inclusive two-way partnership for mutual learning that values difference.” (EMCC Global)
Collective Mentors
Lauren Atkinson
Lauren, a creative warrior, a peace activist, and a teaching artist, works with children, youth and adults mentoring deep listening, observation and creative collaboration. Lauren believes creative work is the path to deepening our interconnection with all life and through this understanding of connection supports dreaming in a future for the greater good of all.
Bryn McAfee
Bryn is a former Calyx mentor, a painter, song-carrier, and deep listener to the more-than-human world.
Maisie B Greer
Maisie, rooted deeply in Earth ways, is a systems educator and program administrator with a passion to facilitate inclusive, safe spaces for children across a spectrum of diversities.
Andi Kopit
Andi Kopit, currently teaching with SWSD ALE’s program, is a pollination biologist and enjoys sharing her passion with the next generation through fieldSTEM education.
Desireé González Negrón
Desiree grew up in San Juan, Puerto Rico where she began her lifelong quest to understand and protect the natural developmental processes of young children. She acquired an early childhood development BA, worked with autistic children at a speech and language clinic and moved to Seattle, where she studied and practiced play-based, emergent curriculum in preschools and homes alike. Desiree is an unstoppable advocate for children’s right to play and to have safe, age appropriate conflicts, which she sees as key relationship strengthening, language-building moments, as well as chances to lead by example with consent-based, respectful and authentic communication.
Rachel Joseph
Rachel is deeply curious about the world and what is possible when life is approached from a lens of curiosity and openness. She is an adventurer, artist, mentor and community member who deeply cares about facilitating safe spaces for children to engage in the exploration of life and themselves through art, creative play, connection with nature and engagement with community. She draws on her experience working with kids in various educational and outdoor settings both in California and on Whidbey Island.
Ariel Starlight
Ariel grew up camping and climbing mountains in Southeast Alaska before moving to Whidbey Island in 2013 to pursue growing food and homesteading. Ariel is building a house while raising two young children, goats, chickens, ducks, geese, cats, bees... Ariel holds a master's in teaching and is passionate about equity in access to education and place-based outdoor learning.
Joe Italiano
Bio Coming
Bin Greer
Bin, the Tinker, loves to make people laugh. He adds lightness and magic to his community, projects and play. He has a knack for connecting with youth and engaging folks in creative and silly endeavors.
About our Sliding Scale.
Diverse Community-Supported Programming
Historically, community and mentoring were parts of village living rather than paid-for programming as it often is today. We believe that every being should have access to community life and mentoring here in the HeartField and that the more we open the doors, the more diverse our community becomes, which enriches and deepens our human experience on Earth. To this end, we keep our costs low, stay connected to land, and are striving to finance our organization on a diversity of income sources that is not dependent solely on program fees.
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Where your money goes ~ How SLIDING SCALE works
Investment in our programs contributes to mentor and administrative compensation, rental fees, land stewardship, materials, our financial aid fund, and support for the growth of our start-up collective. Programs are offered on a sliding scale starting at $50 or $100/child (depending on the program) with the option of a payment plan. For your reference, we will always be transparent about what payment amount helps cover our costs. Those who can pay more, help bring balance. We ensure our mentors are paid well, the land is cared for, and our program has room to grow. All Collective Mentors get paid the same amount and have agency in collaboratively deciding if any particular program is running too low for them to be able to offer their services. We will always be in clear and honest communication with you. We are dedicated to being there for our participants and families.
In the end, YOU DECIDE what you can afford to contribute to a HeartField experience. We don't ask questions or push or judge. We know everyone is on a unique journey and we trust our families to show understanding, heart, and reciprocity. NO ONE will be turned away for lack of funds. If you and your child feel a HeartField Program is a good fit, we encourage you to register; we will work out the reciprocation in direct relationship with you. Specific payment options for each program can be found on the Registration Forms.
We Collaborate
The Mousery deeply believes in the work of Heartfield Learning Collective and is happy to promote them and host their online presence while they are organizing.
Please check out Mousery Studios homepage for the latest Tinkering, Repair & ReMakery Labs coming soon to Whidbey!