2020 Folk, Farm & Forest Youth Camp
June 22-26 • June 29-July 3 • July 6-10
Students truly have fun exploring New Mexican farming and folk traditions, taking adventures into the wild to learn about medicinal plants and foods, practice self discovery through art, learn about making trementina salve and herbal teas, playing educational games, swimming in a swimming hole on site, and have ing chance to engage in the great multicultural traditions of the surrounding area.
Activities include: Making Herbal Root Beer, making hair and face mask with edibles, Medicinal Plant walk on-site, Acequia visit: irrigation culture and how it brings community together, Water balloon fight and games, swimming on site (3 ft swimming hole), making bows and arrows and hole hoops with willow and archery games, Coping with stress and trauma exercises and discussion, Plant walk/hike Italianos Trail Taos Ski Valley Rd, Making medicine bags and sage bundles, Making tamales, Visit to 3 farms in Taos and do farming projects, seed saving, sustainability talks, Story telling, Team building activities daily
If you would like to sponsor a student or make a donation to this program please click the button below.
Teachers: Teachers currently confirmed for next years camp: Morgaine Witriol, Noberto Armijo, Henrietta Gomez, Tiana Suazo, Veronica Sandoval, Jerry Pacheco, Tori Stevens
Henrietta Gomez
Henrietta is from Taos Pueblo and guides the Taos Pueblo Gardening club for youth. Her family grows corn and she sells cornmeal and tamales. She is a much respected elder in the community and we are fortunate to have her share time and fun with the youth. Henrietta will make sage bundles and medicine bags with campers. She shares about how food can be medicine and also teaches campers how to make tamales.
Morgaine Witriol
Morgaine Witriol is a Certified Clinical Herbalist, wild crafter, gardener, and medicine maker. She is also the founder of Native Roots. Morgaine apprenticed with a medicine man in the rainforest of Belize has been an ongoing student amongst elders in New Mexico. She studied at several herbal schools including the Northwest School for Botanical Studies, California School of Herbal Studies, The Blue Otter School, The Dandelion Herbal Center, and at the Acutonics Institute of Integrative Medicine. She graduated from the University of Colorado. In 2008 Morgaine worked for nonprofit Teambuilders Counseling Services Taos New Mexico as a Comprehensive Community Support Specialist teaching “life skills” including communication, stress and anger management, parenting skills and offering social work opportunities for children and their parents. She also worked as a behavioral management specialist. Later she worked at nonprofit Rocky Mountain Youth Corps with “at risk youth” doing hands on experiential learning in nature focusing on useful life skills and training once a week for teens. She was a crew supervisor for summer programs and the after school program that had high school students teaching elementary school students. Afterwards she ventured to Guatemala to volunteer at an orphanage and was responsible for 30 girls ages 10-17 as their live in caretaker and teacher for 5 months. After a year a little over a year in Belize and Guatemala she endured hurricane Sandys destruction leaving 13 million people on the East coast without electricity. She coordinated one thousand volunteers a day in Staten Island, New York and spent months doing grass roots disaster recovery with Feeding Family including immediate needs donations and distribution of water, food, respiratory masks, clothing, tho food, medications and animal rehoming, demolition, and later therapeutic urban gardening in elevated community garden beds, fundraising, and more demolition, raw sewage clean up and mold control.
Noberto Armijo
Noberto Armijo grew up in Ojo Sarco and Chamisal, New Mexico. He has been doing agriculture for over 10 years and has integrated a business degree from UNM with small scale agriculture to help connect himself back to his roots of the land. Noberto is passionate about acequia culture as well as the importance of the land and water. He was a mentor for youth in Sembrando Semillas through The New Mexico Acequia Association for 8 years. Noberto was also the regional farm trainer/ farm manager at Northern New Mexico College’s Sostenga Farm in Espanola, NM through the American Friend Service committee. Here his goal was to train farmers in small scale agriculture using organic farming practices, business techniques , hoop house construction, and marketing tactics to help students create a economically viable business based on off the land.
Jerry Pacheco: Jerry Pacheco is the mayor domo of Ranchos de Taos and 5th generation farmer in Taos. He has an associate’s degree in Environmental science. He is the chair of Taos Youth Music School and is on the board of the Taos County Fair. He worked with Rocky Mountain Youth Corps from 1996-2005 as the program director. He taught high school Spanish and Physical education for 8 years from 1992—1999.
Tiana Suazo: Director of Red Will Farm on Taos Pueblo Tiana will teach campers about preserving and canning native foods. Campers will have the chance to participate in farming projects at Red Willow.
Veronica Sandoval: Raised in Questa, she was inspired by her grandmother who was a curandera. She studied holistic healing at UNM and worked at rocky mountain youth corps. She is passionate about creating healthy choices through artistic expression, medicinal plants and flowers, getting outside to nurture with nature, bees, and offering the opportunities she never had to local youth through fun kinesthetic activities.
Cost:
Sliding Scale $250-350 per week scholarships available.