(Written for my friends at Green River Preserve)
The approach road reels and unspools through rhododendron and blanketing stands of hardwoods and pines until it swivels off to become an even narrower lane. Suddenly, you’re on the property of Green River Preserve. It’s a place of ponds, lakes, streams, waterfalls and open fields; of screened-in porches, cabins and lodge rooms; of boys and girls in the midst of discovering a different world, oftimes the one inside themselves.
Every summer this nature and science camp, south of Brevard, welcomes gifted and talented children into an atmosphere defined by respect for self, respect for others, and respect for all living things.
Its success flows from the initial inspiration and strategic decisions of naturalist Sandy Schenck who, upon settling on the perfect piece of ground, literally and figuratively, has gone about positively changing the lives of youth for more than two decades.
The Schenck family purchased the thirty-four hundred acres, now called Green River Preserve, in the early 1950s as a place to spend weekends and summers fishing, hiking and exploring the Green River Valley. As a child, Sandy learned how to track, hunt, milk cows, churn butter and cook on a woodstove from people whose families had lived in the valley for generations. Through their passed-down stories, he absorbed a reverence for the land and valley history.
Leaving behind the known world of camping
In 1987, Sandy left a career in business to fulfill his lifelong dream of starting a summer camp on the Preserve. After touring camps from Georgia to Maine, a conversation with a child psychologist about the needs of very bright children planted a seed that would later blosssom into Green River.
Sandy wondered: Why not offer “gifted and talented” children a piece of wild mountain geography where they can grow both as naturalists and individuals? In asking the question, a new kind of experience was born; a reinvention of what a summer camp can be and the beginnings of a “wilderness school for gifted children.”
For starters, Green River is a noncompetitive camp, perfectionism being an issue particularly relevant to gifted populations. Campers learn noncompetitive skills—like canoeing, rock climbing, pottery and fly-fishing—all alternatives to competitive team sports.
The focal point is experiential learning. Naturalists at the camp, called “mentors,” are men and women of exceptional character who love teaching and love the outdoors, among them foresters, geologists, biologists, musicians, and artists. Going with the flow of a single day’s activities, a camper could easily run under a waterfall, crawl into a cave, explore an archeological site, track wildlife, taste an edible plant, and stomp feet to the rhythms of Appalachian banjos and guitars.
Hiking into astonishment
A snake-like line of back-packed 12-year-olds rattles up a non-existent path moving over and under fallen trees, some four feet in diameter, across boulders and tumbling creeks.
The group’s mentor, Naomi, scarcely taller than her students, rounds everyone up to encircle an outcrop of wild ginseng. She talks about how this curative plant strengthens the body and about how rare “sang” is, these days, in the mountains.
The destination is Uncle’s Creek Falls, a crashing column of white water.
Once there, some of the middle schoolers, up from Charlotte, join the ranks of past Green River “Polar Bears” by standing under a long flume and repeating something about being frozen 10 times. Around to the side and up the shank of a hill, a boy climbs next to a lichen-covered rock and finds a salamander. He yells back to his partner, “Look at this! Look at this!”
These kinds of experiences richly reflect the camp’s mission: “to provide a challenging and nurturing learning experience and to inspire a profound appreciation of interconnectedness, ecological respect, and the joy of living.”
Staying consistent with that mission is particularly important with gifted populations, given the many sizes and shapes of giftedness. Children can be gifted academically, linguistically, artistically, musically, scientifically, or in many other ways. In that light, and to de-emphasize competition, the ending score of all games is “fun to fun.” There are no teachers, classes or super stressy races or tests, only naturalists and counselors and lots of activities.
Lives changed
In the end, Green River makes a difference in children’s lives, whether or not they have seen a wild turkey, a deer, a bear, and a venomous snake during their summer stay—the camp’s “Grand Slam” of sightings. And the GRP experience is never forgotten.
“More than anyone or anything else in the world I am who I am today because of Green River Preserve,” writes a South Carolina camper.
Sandy Schenck recalls another former camper and mentor, Chris Paul, who looked up from his work in the Peace Corps in Africa to discover an approaching figure wearing a red GRP bandanna—a small world, made smaller by the fundamental notion that man and nature are one, woven together, and that we are all potential leaders and stewards in watching over the Earth.
There are Woodcraft Laws at Green River, one of which has to do with Beauty. In part, it says: “Be a friend of all wildlife. Conserve land, forest and rivers.”
Recently retiring from direct management of the camp, Sandy Schenck continues to take on the evocation of this Woodcraft Law as a personal belief system and way of life. In recent years, he has settled parts of the Preserve into conservation easements, initiated the documentation of passed-down stories about the families of the valley (including a wonderful piece by cousin David Schenck about Joe Capps, who for years walked 28 miles each way to his mill job in Greenville, South Carolina), and inspired the creation of a public school program called “Muddy Sneakers.” In the fall of 2008, Muddy Sneakers provided a semester-long series of wilderness expeditions for roughly a thousand school kids in Western North Carolina.
All these experiences wend their way back to Green River Preserve and to the idea behind it, a place set aside from the crush and stress of daily life, a place that provides ballast for “nature deficit disorder.” Green River, in fact, is inclined to operate in sync with another of its Woodcraft Laws: “Be kind, do at least one act of unbargaining service each day. Be helpful, do your share of the work. Be joyful, seek the joy of being alive.”
A nice description, so far, of the life of Sandy Schenck.
(Sandy and his wife, Missy, remain executive directors of Green River Preserve, with the day-to-day direction of the camp now in the experienced hands of Paul and Beth Bockoven.)
Sidebar:
An ageless corridor, preserved.
The land occupied by Green River Preserve is bounded on one side by 10,000-acre DuPont State Forest, on another by vast lands under conservation easements established by John Ball. These protected parcels connect with YMCA Camp Greenville and Jones Gap State Park in South Carolina. All this wild acreage, which includes the Schenck family portion of some 2,800 acres, crosses the continental divide and forms a natural corridor for the movement of wildlife in upstate SC and WNC. Sandy Schenck has worked for years to keep this corridor open and unhampered by civilization. His dedication to keeping the mid-section of this natural area free from development speaks of a commitment to principles upon which the Preserve is founded. “We are guests of the land”, he says. “The plants and animals who live here are the real occupants.”
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