August 21, 2025

Dear ::subscriber.first_name::,

Mountains to the east, mountains to the west: it’s not hard to imagine Rockbridge County rather like a nest – the place we raise our young. Nurturing Environmental Stewardship Together (NEST) is the way this community ensures all local children grow up learning how to care for this place we call home. Led by Boxerwood educators and volunteers, our sequential, multi-grade curriculum helps 2,600 youth each year develop the knowledge, skills, and confidence to become can-do stewards of the Earth. How do we do it? Read on.

The foundation of our NEST curriculum, Boxerwood’s preschool program features a 3-year rotation of nature-based themes enlivened by stories, puppets, and play. For Fall 2025, the youngest among us will traipse through the garden with Chatter the Squirrel, discovering amidst the oaks, acorns, and insects the marvel that everything is connected. First graders, meanwhile, will explore the many ways plants disperse their seeds, while second graders deep in the woodland consider how animals adapt to seasonal change. The outreach continues in winter as we visit all 17 local preschools, bringing our bird puppets along. Then we’ll get ready for more outdoor programs in the spring: flowers & pollinators, maps & waterways, frogs & turtles, but most of all: delight, trust, wonder. As over 1,000 early learners discover each year, it’s all connected in the NEST.

Action learning is a big part of Project NEST, and by upper elementary school 700 kids a year are learning how ecosystems work and what we can do to protect them. In a series of field-based programs, we teach children ages 8-10 how to think like scientists as they plan and carry out data-rich investigations about birds, bugs, and more. As part of these Boxerwood visits, students also learn how to recycle, compost, and prevent soil erosion. With help from our educators, they then put these stewardship actions into practice back at school. By the 4th and 5th grade, all these emerging Earth stewards step up their responsibilities. They also start monitoring the health of streams and filling the Boxerwood nurseries with hundreds of hand-planted seedlings, getting ready for more watershed actions to come.

As middle schoolers meet a more complex world, Project NEST grows with them. Some youth seize the opportunity to join our annual 3-day trip to the Chesapeake Bay. Others forge new LDMS-MRMS friendships through our EarthKeepers Club. Beyond these activities, though, there are also school-based projects that connect all middle schoolers at some point to community issues and action. This year, Boxerwood educators are helping Maury River Middle School science teachers implement a local water monitoring project in which all 200 6th graders collect seasonal data from impaired Woods Creek then share their findings (and recommendations) with stakeholders. 6th graders at Lylburn Downing Middle School also investigate this urban waterway, while peers in Buena Vista study the Maury River. At each school, student-led stewardship action is part of the plan – including planting those nursery trees the kids first nurtured as seedlings!

Boxerwood connects with teens in varied ways, reflecting the diverse pathways to young adulthood. During the school day, we typically partner with environmental science teachers, assisting with stream-based studies. This fall, we’re working with PMHS ecology students as they pursue a multi-week investigation: “How healthy is the Maury for fishing and swimming?” We’re also working with agriculture classes at RHCS for the first time, supporting a teacher’s interest in having her students investigate the relationship between best farming practices and water quality. Beyond the classroom, Boxerwood also convenes annual Green Career Expos for both high schools; organizes a paid summer teen internship program through our BV Cool Trees project; and recruits and trains teens for the annual state Envirothon competition. By the time these students leave the NEST, they’ve had years of learning with Boxerwood and are ready to take flight.

Teachers guard their instructional time closely. We’re honored that professional educators across all our schools champion Project NEST as an invaluable part of their curriculum. During recent planning sessions between Boxerwood and teachers from Rockbridge County Public Schools, we invited feedback about this partnership from our colleagues:

• "Boxerwood is one of the groups that truly make our county unique…You give kids purposeful learning experiences that stay with them and teach them how to be positive members of society!"
  
  

• "Our partnership with Boxerwood is the heart behind fostering environmentally literate citizens. [Boxerwood] is our greatest ally in inspiring future Earth stewards."
  
  

• "I could not be the teacher I am today without the support and efforts of Boxerwood."

August is the month for our annual back-to-school appeal – your gift of any size is essential. All donations help subsidize Project NEST program fees for schools in need, including all 12 of our public school partners and almost all of our 17 preschools. Whatever level you can contribute, we thank you – and so do the kids.

We posted a link to our 24-25 Impact Report in the July NewsLeaf, though we heard from some folks they didn’t realize the report contained more than the budget pie charts on page one. We’ve got some amazing stories and stats to share as well, so posting the report here again in a single-scroll format – enjoy!

Boxerwood Education Association is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Contributions are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. Federal Tax ID: 54-1937944

Sent by Boxerwood.

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