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Wild Folk Learning Community's
Mission Statement (2015—2020):
Tapping into enduring traditions as well as the latest educational research, we encourage learning's inherent passion, curiosity, and joy. Through a deep connection to the natural world and our community, we seek to cultivate compassionate, empowered, ecologically-minded citizens. WILD FOLK weaves together experiential, place-based learning, diverse mentorship, creative play, skill-based education, democratic decision-making, and collaborative community-building.
Here's the mission statement we came up with for our former forest school & education programs. We remain as committed to ever to these values, but we have shifted away from public group programs and are instead focusing our efforts on sharing our creations through our online shop.
Check out this wonderful film from 2019 about our forest school; made by a local college student
And this film,
Roots of Knowledge,
made during the very first year of our forest school (2015); also by local college students!
More photos, press, & staff profiles below.
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Some press about Wild Folk...
Democracy Might Not Exist, But We'll Miss It When It's Gone (book by Astra Taylor, July 2019)
River becomes outdoor classroom for local students (article in the Columbia Tribune, April 2018)
Wild Folk takes kids into nature to inspire their imagination (article in the Columbia Missourian July 2017)
Some of our beloved core organizers...
Our community of advisors, mentors, and advocates extends far and wide.
Here are some of the key people who have helped create and continue to shape Wild Folk over the years.
We are grateful to the broad community that has nurtured our work and continues to support us.
Polina Malikin, founder and director.
Polina is an artist, writer, teacher, and a community organizer who is motivated by the hope and possibility of Healing. She earned her BA in cultural studies and international health at Brown University, and MFA in Film & Media from the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. For over 20 years, Polina has worked with learners of all ages in public schools, after-school programs, self-organized collectives, and university classes. She has traveled nationally and international to work as a filmmaker, humanitarian aid worker, and teacher. Before Wild Folk, Polina ran a community art space, was a member of a feminist art collective, and started a community garden, was a college professor, and helped run a film festival.
Chaz Prymek, mentor.
Since 2017, Chaz has been working with Wild Folk as a mentor, sharing his love of music, nature, and games. He is a musician who has recorded several albums and regularly tours nationally; he publishes music under the name Lake Mary and Nevada Greene. Chaz is also a skilled carpenter, builder, and farmer. Besides romping through the woods with Wild Folk, he also works at Goatsbeard Farm, the beautiful goat dairy right next door to Wild Folk's headquarters in Harrisburg, Mo.
Paul Sturtz, administrative assistant.
Paul is currently co-director of Upstate Films in Upstate New York. He co-founded and co-directed the True/False Film Fest, considered one of the great nonfiction festivals in the world. He also founded and programmed the Ragtag Cinema, an independent arthouse cinema, for two decades. Paul holds a degree in journalism from the University of Oregon, has served as communications director for the Missouri Rural Crisis Center, and worked as a reporter for the Columbia Tribune and an editor for the Columbia Missourian. He also served as a Columbia City Council representative, where he got an education in the grinding gears of government. Paul believes deeply in the limestone creeks of Boone County, Missouri and wants everyone to wade in whenever possible.
Darcy Higgins, founding mentor.
Darcy is one of the founding educators at Wild Folk. Her own exploration of passion-based, whole-person education began at 16, when she wrote her parents a 6-page essay on why they should let her drop out of high school and unschool. She began teaching nature-based education in 2012, in Ohio coal country, integrating watershed education into public schools and community life. Since then, she has taught at residential environmental education centers, co-written curriculum for Missouri River Relief, pursued graduate education in inquiry-based learning at Miami University, and run summer camps in Alaska. Darcy strives for a balance of letting the land be the teacher, while also bringing thoughtful provocations and inspirations to the table.
Sara Miller, mentor.
Sara is an experienced educator, having worked at a Montessori elementary school for four years in California and at a forest school in Denmark. Combining her degree in childhood development and education with her personal outdoor experience, Sara brings a wealth of knowledge and love of children and nature. Sara now lives full-time at Jade Green Farm in Harrisburg, and helps care for the land and retreat center there.
Hannah Hemmelgarn, founding mentor & advisor.
Hannah has taken the scenic route on her life path: after completing a degree in Anthropology and Sociology, she explored community farm life in Quebec and in Missouri. A permaculture design course, an herbalism apprenticeship, and a bicycle clown collective later, she launched an experiential education experiment known as Wild Wonder. In 2014, she honed her naturalist educator skills at Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center on the north shore of Lake Superior. Currently, Hannah is a graduate research assistant at the University of Missouri’s Center for Agroforestry, where her focus is on collaborating with high school educators to integrate agroforestry in their curriculum. When she's not gardening, bicycling, or studying, Hannah is deeply nourished by walking in the woods and making plant medicine with the Wild Folk family.
Anna Wilson, mentor.
Anna comes from the heart of Missouri, just south of Columbia. Anna has dedicated her life to fostering a deep relationship with the natural world, which she sees as an essential aspect of healthy human life on this planet. As a counselor in training and a yoga, meditation, and mindfulness teacher, Anna has worked with a diverse range of learners in a variety of settings. She is daily inspired by the vitality, sharp observation, curiosity, and awe that children can bring to their experiences within the natural world. Her passion is to fan the flame in each of us, to encourage continued contact with and a remembrance of our innate capacities of dancing in harmony with the natural rhythms of mysterious life on this planet. Anna likes to run, sing and play guitar, garden, and learn about indigenous culture and history.
Dan Bugnitz, founding mentor.
Dan studied philosophy at the University of Missouri, and has since traveled the world continuing his study of life's big questions, ethical challenges, and spiritual depths. Dan has focused on mindfulness, permaculture and healthy food production, woodworking, and literature.
He spent time directing a wind-power energy company, managing a youth hostel in Oregon, and building a timber-framed community center in Alaska. Since settling in Columbia, he has worked at Cafe Berlin, founded his own tempeh-making business, organized live storytelling events, and started a collective woodworking and carpentry business.
More photos below.
