International Women’s Day
The women of the Collective, some of our kiddos and Bug Ben!
Dear Ones,
In honor of International Women's Day this week I wanted to tell you a little bit about the amazing women that make up the collective. I founded Nature School, a nature based preschool program at the Cibolo Nature Center 6.5 years ago. All of the members of the Sprouting Curiosity Collective were drawn to the program and we have stuck together ever since.
Chloe Blumenberg
Treasurer
In June 2022, a big group of women who belong together sat down to dream about our desire to create more spaces throughout the City of San Antonio for kids to be able to build relationship with Nature. We had (and still have) many big dreams about what we want to accomplish, but we needed a place to start. As we were sitting together, we realized that what we needed first and foremost was a website, email addresses, to figure out how to become a non-profit, the basic business kind of stuff. And as we were sitting there, Chloe made it happen. She got the website & the email addresses within moments of us realizing that we needed those things. She had the all of the filing information for the government done within the next week. It still gives me goosebumps when I think about it. We literally would not be where we are today without Chloe. Chloe can get things done!
Lauren Lennhoff
Secretary
Lauren was at the very first Open House that we ever had for Nature School. She was very excited to enroll Annaliise in Nature School & she & her husband, Victor, listened really intently to my impassioned discourse about the importance of playing to learn in nature. Afterwards, they came up to me to talk a little bit before they left. One of the things that they told me was that I had spelled something wrong on the job chart. I knew right then that I wanted Lauren to always be on my team. It takes so much courage to talk kindly and with respect to someone (especially someone you have just met!) about a mistake that they have made, but they handled it so perfectly. I always want to handle things with the same measure of grace and kindness that Lauren did in that moment.
Allie Russell
Webmaster and Community Organizer
The first day of school is always madness. Some of the littles are going to cry. The returning kids are remembering how school works. We have always put a bunch of work in on the front end, planning things and getting everything ready & generally everything gets dumped into a pile and every child’s favorite thing ends up being an acorn or a stick. It can be super frustrating. But on Allie’s first day of Nature School she told me, “I just want to convince this kid to be my best friend.” One of the bedrocks of my teaching philosophy is this kind of caring. Allie is so good at embodying it. She wasn’t frustrated with things not going according to our plan, she was embracing that our plan is actually always about building relationship first. After that everything falls into place. Allie’s caring is amazing.
Blanca Tellez
Jack of All Trades
In March of 2020, we shut Nature School down because of COVID-19. We began online programming & I was losing my mind. I didn’t know how to do Nature School online. I am not computer literate. I am not phone literate. I am not technology literate. And I was sorely missing the kids and the routine and I was scared. In the middle of all this, I sent out a newsletter about the ridiculousness of my dogs. It was very much about me & my lack of coping skills in the moment & I was pretty sure that (a) all the parents were going to hate it & (b) all the Nature Center staff were going to hate it & that my demise was eminent. I hit send anyway. Almost immediately, Blanca texted me that she loved it, that it made her laugh. I literally cried with relief. Blanca’s encouragement meant the world to me. And it still does.
I consider myself lucky every time I think about it, to have these amazing women in my life. I am thankful for them, I am grateful for them, I am glad to have spent the last 6 - 10 years of my life with them.
Thank goodness for amazing women.
Peace,
Ms. Linda