A new outdoors for Beaufort County kids
Published 7:57 pm Thursday, June 6, 2013
For some Beaufort County children, playtime at daycare will soon be all about growth: of trees, flowers, vegetables and their young minds.
Care-O-World Enrichment Center in Washington is slated to become a teaching ground, not only for the children on its rosters but for early childhood educators, as the daycare is transformed to a model for teaching through the natural environment.
The project, part of North Carolina State University’s Natural Learning Initiative program, is designed to reestablish the connection between kids and the natural world. At Care-O-World, that means taking a standard playground and making it park-like, filling the land with paths, trees and flowering plants, and creating a community garden where children can help grow fruits and vegetables to take home.
“Instead of calling them playgrounds, we call them outdoor learning environments,” said Nilda Cosco, director of the Natural Learning Initiative.
The project’s intended result is to create an environment that provides two important ways children learn: by hands-on experience and exposure to the outdoor world, a place with critical importance in the physical development, activity and overall health of children.
It took a community working together to make it happen: Lisa Woolard, with Beaufort/Hyde Partnership for Children, started the ball rolling. As the plan progressed, the input of Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust’s Healthy Places Initiative officials encouraged her to bring in other community organizations. Soon, Care-O-World, Beaufort County Master Gardeners, Washington Pediatrics and the Early Childhood Department at Beaufort County Community College were on board. With the pieces in place, funding came through with grants from Healthy Places and the Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation, which supports several NLI programs like POD (Preventing Obesity by Design) and Shape NC.
The largest daycare center in Beaufort County, Care-O-World serves over 200 children daily, most of whom are the children of working parents and qualify for free lunch, according to Woolard.
For Ginger Thomas, a member of the Care-O-World family, the grants and coming community partnerships will add an element that the center had previously been unable to provide.
“In order to provide quality care, it takes quality staff and that takes a lot of money. Quality staff is our biggest expense. Having ‘extra’ money to do really nice stuff isn’t there,” Thomas said.
Soon it will be — though the outdoor learning environment is expected to take three years to come to full fruition. Thursday saw Woolard, Cosco, Master Gardeners and more begin the process of hashing out a design.