A Tipi for Earth Education

Hello, We are hoping to raise £1600 for a tipi to use for school visits and holidays on our farm, and would love to have your support. This project is all about inspiring the next generation to care about our environment. But it s also about you having somewhere really cool to take a weekend break! We are Vicky and Simon Lacey, and in our spare time we ve set up Cambridge Sustainability Centre on an organic farm just outside Cambridge. We re passionate about helping people to live more sustainably, and to enjoy doing it! Over the next few years we hope to be able to expand what we are doing and provide a resource for more and more people. We are really excited that this year we are hosting our first overnight Earth Education school visit. To instill a desire to protect the planet, children need to meaningfully connect with nature by having a magical or profound experience in a natural environment. We re aiming to inspire the children to love and care for their planet, and leave as Earth Ambassadors to inspire their friends and families too! We hope that for many of them it will be their first step in a lifelong journey of wonder at and care for planet Earth. To make their visit memorable - that all-important 'magical' or profound experience - it would be fantastic to put them up in a tipi something that will make them go wow! when they arrive, and they will never forget sleeping in. The tipi will make the difference between staying in ordinary nylon tents, and elevating their experience to something more unique and connected to nature. Staying in a proper tipi will also demonstrate how generations of humans lived comfortably in ways that didn t damage the Earth. We want to offer Earth Education visits to more children, and the tipi will be instrumental in making this happen. When it s not being used for Earth Education, we can use the tipi to offer weekend breaks in our quiet and beautiful orchard, where people like you can get away from it all and relax. This will help us make the Centre financially independent and enable us to continue improving our facilities. We can t do this without your help. We are working really hard to make the kids visit as fantastic as possible, but on our own we don t have the capital to make the Earth Education Tipi a reality. Here is a breakdown of the costs we hope to cover we don t have much time so our target is to cover the essentials, but if possible it would be great to go beyond that: £1600 will pay for the basic tipi - poles and canvas (essentials!) £110 will pay for a groundsheet (also pretty essential) £250 will pay for coir matting to cover the groundsheet (much nicer to kip on than plastic) £90 will pay for a rain catcher (tipis have a hole at the top where the poles stick out, so in the UK this means you might get a bit wet if you don t have one of these) We are offering stays in the tipi for our rewards. The tipi will sleep up to 4 adults, and we'll provide comfy roll-mattresses and wood for your campfire. Running water, a compost toilet and a kitchenette are available to use in the orchard. If you go for our top reward, you'll also get to use our yurt (normally used as our classroom!), which comes with an optional small woodburning stove. Thank you so much for reading and we hope you can visit us soon! Vicky and Simon PS: Why not keep up with our progress on preparations for the school visit by following us on Twitter @camsuscen or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/camsuscen. Or visit www.cambridgesustainability.co.uk to find out more about us and sign up to our newsletter.

by camsuscen in Cambridge