On Feburary 9th, Katie and Clare descended from the Mountain to present to Hood College’s honors program sophomores. The honors program is designed for motivated and engaged students to join together in pursuit of a globally relevant interdisciplinary education. As part of this adventure, the students take Honors 202 in the spring of their Sophomore year. This class listing is described as follows: Each student chooses a social or intellectual problem to address, writes a research paper and works at an off-campus site, gaining experience and connections that may also lead to paid employment or help determine a future career. The broad, overarching theme of this class is social justice, but the sites students at which students have chosen to volunteer are many and varied. This year, ThorpeWood joined the list of host sites along with community institutions like Heartly House, Frederick Health, The Delaplaine, Catoctin Nature Center, Girls on the Run, and so many more.
This was all into motion back in November, when Hood College professor Katie Robiadek attended the Ausherman Group Summit at ThorpeWood. She introduced herself to us and asked if we might be interested in hosting some volunteers. We, of course, said YES! So, with that invitation and a parking pass on our dashboard, we headed into the Honors 202 class to share about ThorpeWood and let the students know what their volunteer experience would look like with us. With our talk and visual presentation, we shared about ThorpeWood’s mission, shared about our programs, let them know the huge range of opportunities available at the farm, and of course showed so many photos of our animals! And of course, in traditional Katie and Clare form, we showcased our grand silliness and friendship through our presentation – a live demonstration of our workplace culture. The teachers present told us we should go on the road together!
We were unsure at first how our pitch landed – there were no questions or comments at the end…but then! We had NINE students out of a class of around 25 approach us at the end of class to find out more and commit to volunteering at ThorpeWood! We were over the moon!
We have orientation days set up in the next two weeks to get everyone acquainted with the farm and ready to begin their 27 hours of service with us! We are so excited!
If you want to volunteer yourself, you can fill out an interest form here!