OUR STORY

Ventura Wild was founded in 2009 by professional outdoor educators and local parents.

The team that founded Ventura Wild was Heather King, Rita Maes, and Alison Bradley, with support from Sara Benjamin. Ventura Wild began under the non-profit umbrella of Oak Grove School, a private school located in Ojai, California.

Ventura Wild is now a program of the Ventura Land Trust. Together our goal is to create highly impactful comprehensive nature-based learning experiences.

Ventura Wild, a youth outdoor education program, aims to foster a meaningful connection between children and nature. This program seeks to instill a sense of belonging by nurturing awareness, knowledge, skill, and stewardship in the natural world. Our team of trained educators facilitates a transformative experience for participants, offering them opportunities to enhance their understanding of the natural world through safety skill development and exploration.

The program's core philosophy revolves around learning through awareness, investigation, and play, ensuring participants acquire lasting knowledge through guided self-discovery. Each session is designed to encourage students to expand their sensory awareness, allowing them to immerse themselves in the natural world. Our educators prioritize the importance of questioning the patterns and rhythms presented by nature.

Ventura Wild sessions are structured to incorporate wilderness skills, providing dedicated time for practice and development. Students actively learn and apply essential skills such as mapping and compass orientation, plant and animal identification, hiking safety, and safe outdoor recreation. By emphasizing hands-on learning in outdoor settings, Ventura Wild plays an important role in shaping the next generation of land stewards.

The acquisition of these skills not only establishes a connection to wild places but also instills the confidence to engage safely and mindfully with the broader world. Ventura Wild, through its approach, seeks to contribute to the development of responsible and conscientious individuals who appreciate and safeguard our natural environment.

“If we want children to flourish, to become truly empowered, then let us allow them to love the Earth before we ask them to save it. Perhaps this is what Thoreau had in mind when he said, ‘The more slowly trees grow at first, the sounder they are at the core,’ and I think the same is true of human beings.”  

We honor the natural learning rhythms that mimic the natural world and couple that with nurturing the multiple intelligences of youth in a holistic and playful fashion.

There are five core values that we cycle through in our teaching process:

  • Sensory Awareness

    Sensory stimulation in a natural setting along with challenges that hone sensitivity toward being more fully alive and present in the moment provides the skills to manage risks, to experience the world deeply, and to connect with the state of nature and being natural.

  • Mindfulness

    Opportunities to focus, practice mindfulness skills, and interact with complex systems are all important, lifelong skills. Participants can experience individual and group outcomes at the moment through hands-on explorations, projects, and positive adult role modeling.

  • Risk

    Self-reliance and group interdependence are both integral to confidence building. Challenging ourselves to try climbing a tree or just off a rock can be a risk. Trusting our intuition, trusting our group, and speaking from a place of self-reliance give us strength. 

  • Stewardship

    Participating in local conservation projects, from picking up trash, removing invasive species, designing low-water gardens, and planting acorns and other native seeds are all examples of meaningful ways children can contribute in real ways to their world.

  • Fun

    Just plain fun, creative, curious, joyful exuberant goofiness, and all-out roll-around in the mud or crashing into the water is what it all really comes down to. Nature connection is not a metaphor. It is literal, and a perfect enjoyable learning and growing experience for everyone.