My Nonprofit Reviews

I have volunteered at Challenge Unlimited for about five years now, first helping with the horses used by clients who were there for therapy, and later in the Welcome Center. The staff at the farm are professional, dedicated, and compassionate people who combine their efforts for the well-being of their clients. In addition to the serious work done for people with disabilities, there is an ongoing effort to establish a sense of community through programs like Breakfast with Santa, a Derby Day road race, and an annual evening gala fundraiser. Challenge Unlimited is a wonderful organization doing amazing work.

In 2001, I was a participant in the annual summer teachers' workshop, Approaching Walden, run by the Walden Woods Project. After immersing myself in the works of Henry David Thoreau, surrounded by the woods he roamed and enriched by the various experts brought in to share their insights and knowledge, I returned to the classroom with exciting new ideas and a curriculum unit I'd developed that reinvented the way I was teaching Walden and Thoreau's other works. My students became engaged and responsive in ways they never had previously. Since my retirement in 2007, I have been on staff at Approaching Walden, sharing my classroom successes with each summer's participants. The energy, support, and inspiration provided by the Walden Woods Project's summer institute for teachers resulted in some of the most rewarding lessons I shared with my students, and I am gratified to see that same enthusiasm in each successive group of AW participants. The Walden Woods Project educational outreach has a profound effect on all those who experience it.