Three alumni eschew conventional careers to sleep out under the stars and teach kids to appreciate the natural world...

With the nearest market an hour and a half away, David Brown ’70, owner and operator of Plantation Farm Camp, a 500-acre working ranch and summer camp set among the redwoods of Sonoma County, California, depends on nature every day. "We live outdoors 24 hours a day, sleep in tents, eat outside and take showers that are open to the sky."

Brown joins two other Pomona alumni, Jon Moore ’86 and J.P. O’Connor ’72, in a life-long dedication to teaching children the value and vulnerability of the natural world. They have chosen to eschew more conventional careers for the rewards of introducing new generations of kids to the joys of the outdoors. In their own ways, they all hope that each child who enjoys a week or two at camp will learn the practical skills and the passion to be responsible stewards of the environment.

Since 1984, when Brown and his wife Suzanne bought the Plantation Farm ranch, he has developed a camp program designed to allow children to become comfortable in—and more responsible for—the environment.

"Teaching them to be responsible about the outdoors is so important to the preservation of the environment and mankind. Because if we don’t, we’re going to lose it."

Plantation’s original founders felt that rather than thinking of the outdoors only when playing competitive sports, children should be introduced to a safe and nurturing environment in which they have a support group—an outdoor family, as it were. While Plantation offers traditional camp activities, such as horseback riding, arts and crafts, and swimming, it differs from other camps by providing hands-on interaction with the animals on the farm.

The Browns and their staff begin the day with morning chores, an activity in which all the campers participate. Through the practical skills of milking cows and goats, feeding and caring for horses, chickens, and the many other animals on the ranch, gardening, building tent furniture, and chopping wood, the campers form a community held together by the common aim of hard work.

Life on the ranch is not just hard work, though. The extensive garden they cultivate becomes a 24-hour snack bar where they can enjoy handfuls of snap peas, raspberries, and other healthy treats.

The children are encouraged to create news ways of caring for and playing with the animals. A favorite activity is forming tunnels and towers to create "bunny runs" and erecting climbing structures for the baby goats, says Brown. Farm chores and other daily experiences, such as witnessing the birth of a calf, open the camper’s eyes to the role of animals in the natural world.

"Living, working and playing in this environment allows children to see how the world works," Brown laughs. "All the kids who come here have an appreciation for animals, but some might be more reluctant than others to handle them. The kids who are a little unsure learn that they don’t have to be afraid, and by the end of camp most of them have branched out and given something new a try."

Jon Moore ’86 has always harbored a similar passion for working with kids in the outdoors. Moore is the program director for Skylake Yosemite Camp, a privately owned camp for children located on Bass Lake, just a few miles from the Sierras and Yosemite National Park. Moore, who is also a high school soccer coach, started at Skylake as a "Chipmunk" camper more than 20 years ago, and couldn’t resist the urge to return and pass on his experience as a camper to the children who make the annual trip to the historic camp.

Founded in 1945, Skylake gives campers direct experience with the outdoors, though its philosophy and structure are more traditional than the Plantation Farm. The lack of distractions in the secluded environment encourages the kids to take risks: for some it might be jumping off the huge rock into the lake, for others sleeping outside and seeing their first shooting star.

While the camp activities are busy and structured, Moore designs programs that are non-competitive, relaxed, and catered to the child’s individual needs and preferences. He finds that children excel outside of their comfort zones and learn quickly in situations that are unfamiliar to them. Like Brown, Moore feels that the wilderness plays a significant role in the development of the children as human beings.

"The wilderness really opens the kids’ eyes. It’s about seeing something different than what they know. It’s fun getting ‘city kids’ out of the city, away from their Game Boys and computers. They have to drop the wall that they built up in society and learn to live with other kids in an outdoor setting.""

One of Skylake’s most important features is the small cabin groups who live together for the two or four-week stay. One or two counselors are paired with a small group of six to seven campers, creating a close-knit environment that becomes a second family for them.

Moore believes that children who have had the outdoor camp experience become stronger as individuals and develop a wider perspective of the outdoor world. After a summer session at Skylake, "the change in the children is amazing," he says. "They leave with a better appreciation of nature and are more aware of what is going on in the world around them."

For J.P. O’Connor ’72, working at Douglas Ranch Camps is "one of those things that is literally in your heart and blood." Like both Moore and Brown did at their camps, O’Connor started at Douglas Ranch, a family-run camp created in 1925, as a camper and went on to work as a counselor. Last June, after 28 years as a consultant facilitator in leadership development and strategic planning, she returned to Douglas Ranch to serve as the director.

Douglas Ranch is located on 120 acres in the beautiful Carmel Valley in central California. "It is such a beautiful property and when you are here, you’re given the opportunity to appreciate all the things you love about nature, like the fresh air, the old oak trees and the smell of freshly cut grass across the neighboring ranches," O’Connor says.

O’Connor explains that the outside environment of summer camp offers children the opportunity to come into a safe arena where they can just enjoy being children. The outdoors provides the ideal environment for the children to develop their athletic and social skills that Douglas Ranch feels are so important for physical health, self-confidence, and sportsmanship.

O’Connor believes that seeing things grow and change in a "living environment" introduces the children to new and different experiences. "They are doing all the kinds of things that we know are inside of them but are often just not accessed," she says. "So many of the children are from cities and are not used to walking in the nighttime and seeing a very black, inky sky with beautiful stars. They are fascinated by that."

As a summer camp, Douglas Ranch embraces a structured program with daily classes and chores. The structure, says O’Connor, provides a sense of security that many of the campers do not have elsewhere and gives them the coping mechanisms to handle real-life issues in the everyday world.

"There is an incredible sense of safety and peace here. To this day, the children still talk about how when they come here, they are ‘safe from reality.’"

Even learning about bugs can be a lesson in safety and care. Staff members appoint a camper who is not afraid of spiders and other insects the "Bug Ally." Whenever another more skittish camper finds a bug inside a cabin, the ally is called to rescue the bug and release it into the wild again.

Though the philosophy at Douglas Ranch is focused on different areas of cultivation than those at Plantation Farm or Skylake, it fits its campers well.

"Seeing children develop in the outdoors is a lot like gardening," says O’Connor. "You’ll find that some will flourish in the bright glare of the sunlight and others like to be tucked back, hidden away in the shadows, but children are all equally important and they all play a role in our world."

In a world where children grow up amidst fast-moving technology and easy solutions, most summer camp aficionados agree that outdoor education can open kids up to new ways of thinking and doing. Being in the wilderness aids in a child’s development, allowing them to step outside of what they know and to stretch their imagination, and possibly to build a lifelong relationship with nature in their own unique way.