New outdoor learning program coming to Duplin County

MOUNT OLIVE — A new learning opportunity will soon be available for residents of Duplin County and surrounding areas.

Over the last several years, home-schooling and alternative learning methods have increased in popularity.

According to Brighterly.com, which sourced the Census Experimental Household Pulse Survey, homeschool rates have increased from 2.5 million in 2019 to 4.3 million in 2022. Since alternative learning options are limited in Wayne and Duplin Counties, one business owner, farmer, and former teacher, decided to take matters into her own hands and create a one that she named LEAP Outdoors Farm and Forestry School.

Kimberly Stroud and her husband, Josh, own Acorn Acres Farmstead and Happy Heart Elderberry in Mount Olive. On their farm they raise pigs, chickens, ducks and turkeys. They plan to raise beef and lamb in the future, and they also grow elderberries which is what sparked their natural line of elderberry products.

Now that their businesses are up and running, Kimberly is ready to get back to her first love of teaching. She said that there were two things that inspired her to want to launch LEAP. She traveled to Indonesia to study abroad and that was her first encounter with outdoor, hands-on learning. It changed her perspective of learning.

“It’s completely outdoors and they taught completely outdoors. They taught all grade levels, and I was just completely amazed with what I saw,” she said. “I came back that summer, and when we started the school year, I just felt like I wanted to do something different. I really felt confined in the regular classroom, and I hated all the testing and stuff that went along with that.”

Secondly, she started homeschooling her children and felt it was easy until her son started school. She explained that it was not as easy as teaching her daughter. He needed more hands-on learning and that’s when the idea sparked. They were already incorporating hands-on learning on the farm which the children loved, and it helped them pick up on things they were learning.

“Once I started homeschooling my son, it was a completely different ball game,” Stroud said. “I almost felt guilty. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I teach my son? Then I began to realize, that’s not it. It’s my expectation about how he is supposed to learn, and that didn’t match how he actually learns.

“All kids are different and learn differently. It’s our duty as teachers and educators is to modify how we teach to help them learn,” she explained.

“My goal for the program is to start offering summer camps. We are going to get our feet wet this summer. Then, in the fall, have sign-ups for homeschool families that want to come out to do farm-based education, gardening, even using what we have (on the farm)to cook.”

LEAP stands for Learn, Explore, and Play, and she believes that there are so many things you can learn on a farm or from being outdoors. She plans to incorporate all of those things into her camps and classes. A few things she said she plans to teach are where food comes from, how to cook a healthy meal, understanding where we live, understanding native plants, how plants grow, problem- and solution-based learning, animals and nature, learning about responsibilities, and basic skills like reading and math.

Stroud is in the process of applying for a grant through the Vela Education Fund. The organization’s goal is to support non-traditional education organizations that are new or recently opened. The grant provides either a $2,500 or $10,000 grant initially with the option to apply for another larger grant once the organization can prove their success and worth to the community.

According to Stroud, she tried traditional homeschool groups, but she felt that many of them did not give her family the support they needed. Due to her nine years in education, she felt there was something that she could do herself.

“It just seemed like the parents wanted and needed more leadership in it. There was a need in the community that I could help to fill with my educational background,” she said. “Everyone I mentioned it to were like, ‘Yes, you should totally do that. We need stuff like that.’ Many families are moving towards homeschooling their children. It’s a sacrifice and I know for a lot of other families too, but they are learning and seeing that nobody knows their kids better than they do.

“When you have kids, you know how they learn best. They would label (my son) as having ADHD, and he would be in trouble in time. So we have been working on him on his level,” she said.

Stroud explained that she is passionate about outdoor learning. She loved all of the outdoor learning environments that she has seen so far, and she believes there are several benefits to that style of learning such as better mental and physical health.

“I felt like we really need more non-traditional forms to help children learn, and it needs to be outdoors. I mean when you look at the way education has transformed, it’s running the same race that technology has. When you look at education and study to be a teacher, everything is about technology.

“Unfortunately, technology has caused a lot of depression in our youth,” Stroud said. “They are overweight. They do not understand about food or nature. There is actually a book called the “Last Child in the Woods.” The author coined the term ‘Nature deficit disorder.’ It’s really sad.

“The kids growing up now are going to be our leaders one day, and there is just so much they don’t understand because they are always indoors,” said Stroud.

She is hopeful that she will get a $10,000 grant because she believes those funds will be useful in helping her get outdoor seating, shelters, doing groundwork, providing supplies and equipment, and more. Although the school is going to be for profit, her long-term goal is to start a nonprofit that would help students who may not be able to afford to go to an alternative school or buy their own school supplies.

“I want to form a nonprofit with a board to get community members involved, older people in the community with wisdom and experience with things like farming, business, community, etc.,” she said. “I want people with different socioeconomic backgrounds that can help speak for different people in the community. The primary reason will be to raise money so people can be active in these types of programs because unfortunately ,when you look at Montessori schools or Waldorf and private schools, a lot of the children and families attending there are white.

“So these children that are Hispanic, black, or latino aren’t getting this experience or the chance to learn this stuff. That is a part of the program that we need to speak to as well,” Stroud explained.

The program will be located at her 38-acre family farm at 1262 Corbett Hill Road,. Mount Olive. The family moved there from Faison in 2023, and are excited to bring the children out to learn. Stroud has been preparing to open the school by talking to people who have worked in others that are similar and going to outdoor learning groups.

“Kids will get to learn what they are interested in. Not just the teacher telling them this is what you are going to do today and they just sit down all day,” Stroud said. “It will be a lot of things they are interested in and will be very hands-on. I admired the places I saw because I knew my kids would thrive in that kind of environment, and I want to bring that to the people of my community, too.”