A mid-summer weekend in Shenandoah National Park can be many things, but it can never be the same thing twice.
For this year’s Rapidan Society July Weekend in the Park, our Board of Trustees and many Rapidan Society members giving at the Limberlost level ($2,500+/year), joined us on the mountain for a weekend of music, hiking, art, and behind-the-scenes updates on projects and programming happening in the park.
During a productive board meeting on Friday afternoon, SNP Education Program Manager Margo Roseum shared with Trustees just how powerful the park is as a classroom.
Partnering with schools is simultaneously straightforward and complex, and the park’s education team works hard to align curriculum and teacher-led lessons with hands-on learning in the park, specifically tailored to both Virginia standards of learning and each class’s needs.
Roseum believes in the power of nature as a classroom.
In addition, Roseum and her team provide virtual learning programs, teacher workshops, outreach events, and a variety of summer programming opportunities, both for the public and for service-learning groups, at-risk youth, and local community groups. These opportunities range from singular lessons to multi-day experiences, with programming designed for relevance and engagement.
Roseum believes that every piece of this program matters, from what they teach to how they teach to whom they teach. She has big plans for the future of educational programming in the park, including…
- Attend more community events to engage with people close to home
- Develop new curriculums
- Promote continuing education for park staff to improve community connections and the continued relevancy of programming
- Design new teacher workshops
- Build positive energy and excitement around this program to keep education in Shenandoah thriving!
In May, Roseum joined ED Jessica Cocciolone and a few Rapidan Society members for a Coffee & Chat to share her plans for the future of the education program and talk about her favorite moments with kids in the park!
The Trust is proud (and excited!) to support her and her team as she infuses new vitality into the park’s impactful educational programming.
Following the board meeting, Limberlost Circle members and the public were invited to join attendees for a free concert featuring LUA Project – a “mexilachian” band that calls itself a cultural pollinator, bridging together musical styles from different continents and different centuries. Their music is inspired by Mexican Son, Appalachian song forms, Jewish and Eastern European tonalities, baroque melodic ideas, and Scots-Irish narrative storytelling approaches.
This was LUA’s second time performing in partnership with the Trust, having debuted with SNPT at last year’s inaugural Art in the Park event.
On Saturday morning, attendees made their way to Limberlost Trail for a hike with SNP Backcountry/Facilities Manager Nat Phelps, who talked about just how much care goes into every mile of the park’s only ADA accessible trail and (literally) walked the group through and over areas impacted by Trust funding.
He shared that there are 16 NPS employees in the trails division taking care of the park’s 500+ miles of trails, and many of them are seasonal, so they rely heavily on volunteers and youth crews like the Shenandoah Youth Corps.
“It’s an education for labor exchange,” he said. “Labor is needed on trails, and its heavy labor, but they also get involved with other areas of the park because they’re needed to help get rid of invasives do some historic preservation. It’s a great way to learn about careers in the park and teach the next generation what the park service does while getting labor, which is great.”
Back in February, Phelps kicked off our Coffee & Chat series, joining Cocciolone and the Rapidan Society for a discussion all about trails – Shenandoah’s needs are different from Western parks, the impacts of philanthropy, and his ideas for building sustainable trails for today’s visitors and climate.
After the hike, folks gathered at the Skyland Amphitheater for a coffee & bagel break, followed by a hands-on printmaking workshop with Artist-in-Residence Megan Evans.
Evans is a highly regarded visual art educator, well-known for preparing students for careers in visual art at Columbus City Schools. She uses art to investigate nature (specifically mathematical concepts and recurring shapes), and with her guidance, Rapidan Society members explored and created negative space in a new way.
First, participants made pencil sketches. Then they pressed their sketches into soft lino blocks (a linoleum alternative), making a mirror image of the sketch. Then it was time to carve out the negative spaces to make a sort of raised stamp.
While few participants were confident in their pieces, when Evans rolled out the ink and began pressing homemade stamps to paper, there was an overwhelming sense of pleasant surprise – it worked!
If first tries didn’t look quite like they were supposed to, participants picked up the carving tools again and tweaked the details until they were satisfied.
Attendees went home with five cards they’d hand printed and a weekend full of good memories and thought-provoking discussions about the innerworkings of our beloved Shenandoah National Park.
We will be hosting another Weekend in the Park for our Rapidan Society ($1,000+/year) this October with more opportunities to engage with NPS project leads and get first-hand looks at what generosity makes possible for our park and surrounding communities. If you’d like to attend this sort of programming, consider joining the Rapidan Society!
Reach out to our Annual Fund Director, Anna Patchias, at apatchias@snptrust.org for more information about giving levels and upcoming events.