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Day Camps Teach Farm Life
City kids learn all about life on the farm at the Kinkoona Farm Day Camps near Brodhead, Wis. Owner Suellen Thomson-Link and her three children host three-day, sold-out day camps each summer. City kids get to do chores, work with their 90-ewe sheep flock, and help on other farm projects. Parents pay $150 for the experi
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Day Camps Teach Farm Life 34-1-8 City kids learn all about life on the farm at the Kinkoona Farm Day Camps near Brodhead, Wis. Owner Suellen Thomson-Link and her three children host three-day, sold-out day camps each summer. City kids get to do chores, work with their 90-ewe sheep flock, and help on other farm projects. Parents pay $150 for the experience.
"We started with three three-day camps, and it has grown to 10, with 8 to 10 kids at each camp," she says. "One boy has been back every year for the past four years. He says it's great because he doesn't have to learn any stupid camp songs."
Instead of singing, campers find themselves weeding crops, harvesting herbs and flowers to make creams and lotions, or foraging for wild food plants. The day starts with campers splitting up to help Thomson-Link's 10, 13 and 15 year-olds with farm chores, feeding the stock and cleaning out pens.
Thomson-Link got the idea for the day camps soon after moving her family to the 48-acre farm. Friends had volunteered to help her move in. "I was watching moms and their kids enjoy stretching fence and helping get the farm in shape," she recalls. "I realized I had a wonderful opportunity to share and teach."
Marketing the day camps has been easy. Thomson-Link and her family take farm products to farmer's markets in Madison, Wis. and Chicago, Ill. and pass out brochures. She also gets word of mouth marketing from families whose children have been there.
Thomson-Link also organizes and promotes a farm tour in her community. What started as an open house on one or two farms has grown to five farms and 350 visitors from around the region.
"People are keen to learn about farm life, and when they hear about the day camps, they ask if their kids can come," she says. "For some of these kids, it's the first time in their life they have ever used a shovel or even a broom. As a therapist, it interests me that frustration sets in for many after about 15 min. With farm life, they see that they can't hurry nature."
Thomson-Link has her 2010 calendar posted on the farm website and will soon be taking orders. She sets her price based on average childcare charges of $5/hour for a 10-hour day. Overnight stays add $50 per night to the total.
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Kinkoona Farm, 16734 West Dorner Rd., Brodhead, Wis. 53520 (ph 608 897-3983; baabaashop@gmail.com; www.baabaashop.com).
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