Who We Are
Grow WILD Association is a Faith-Based Private Membership Association.
Our current area of attention is a small, nature-based learning community that focuses on the individual as well as the natural environment. We are a team of educators collaborating with various educational philosophies, such as Montessori, multisensory instruction, direct, explicit instruction, and strength-based learning. We combine these educational paradigms (and more) to encourage emergent learning, emotional regulation, and mindfulness. We thrive to reconnect individuals with their own inner guidance system and wild nature by cultivating an ongoing relationship with the living, natural world.
Grow WILD is nestled on a hilltop of fields and farmland surrounded by the Hinsdale Flats Watershed ACEC, which is home to diverse wildlife and natural communities.
How We Started
Kali and Jodi met in 2006 while working at Hillcrest Educational Centers, educating and guiding children with behavioral, developmental, emotional, and learning challenges through a Collaborative Problem-Solving model. They worked in a middle-school aged classroom together, where their professional relationship highlighted how well they worked together and budded into a friendship. They parted ways professionally in 2011, yet their friendship and love of learning together persisted.
In 2012, they began a two-year apprenticeship in folk herbalism at the Gaia School of Earthen Education in Putney, VT. It was there that the seed of an idea began — to weave together work with children and the natural world. Their dream of opening a learning community became a reality in 2020 when they began to collaborate on a nature-based learning community as part of Grow Wild Association.
“Let the Child be free; encourage them; let them run outside when it’s raining; let them remove their shoes when they find a puddle of water; and when the grass of the meadow is wet with dew, let them run on it and trample it with their bare feet; let them rest peacefully when a tree invites them to sleep beneath its shade; let them shout and laugh when the sun wakes them in the morning.”