About Us
Towards Justice
Through Food:
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KinderGarden in the Garden is our first step in building a new food system that supports the people of Thurston County to get access to healthy food that supports bodies, souls, and communities. Together, with you we will create, inspire and empower through cultural wisdom so we can feed ourselves body and soul. .
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More information to come!
KinderGarden in the Garden!
The seeds in our hands are the promise of tomorrow.
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Our Philosophy:
Young children naturally want to be outdoors, engaging with the world: touching, tasting, smelling, exploring. Digging in good soil for worms, looking for bugs, chasing butterflies, building forts and fairy houses.
All that play outdoors creates good strong roots (like a tree) to get them started right. They develop their senses; they learn how to make mistakes and keep going; and they get healthy air and sunshine for their bodies. They learn to socialize with other children, inspired by clean air and water, away from the crush of the city.
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KinderGarden in the Garden is a place for them to freely play, to plant, to get dirty and love it. We will walk in the woods; plant seeds of healthy vegetables; learn to grow, cook, and eat them; and do crafts and projects of all kinds on our beautiful 17-acre site outside of Olympia.
A KinderGarden for Every Child:
We come from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences. We are like individual trees that together form a forest: our strength lies in our diversity and in working together in community to support the children.
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All children are welcome to receive the best we have to offer.
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Our special focus is children of color, and we connect our histories, community values, and our brilliant and expressive cultures to the natural environment all people share. By linking cultural life with nature, we encourage social change for the betterment of our earth and all people.
To help shape that change, KinderGarden in the Garden strives to supports children of color to create and grow in their cultural context. This illustrates the interconnectedness of people and nature and reveals the worth, strength, and promise of everyone.
Meet Our Council
Kerensa Mabwa
Jonathan Strunin
Prita Lal
KinderGarden in the Garden Leadership Council
OUR SIX PINES
We imagine Six Pines standing together in a grove, with each single pine tree representing a key idea - our vision - that helps to shape KinderGarden in the Garden.
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Please enter our forest and rest underneath the shade of one of these Grandmother Pines. As you sit upon her soft bed of needles, listen quietly to her stories, rich with wisdom and knowledge of this place. Listen also to the entire community of plants and animals around you as birds sing and insects buzz. Feel the gentle breeze on your face and breathe with the trees. This is a safe place to be, and you can return here whenever you wish.
You are HOME.
Stephanie Cholmondeley
Creatress, Founder & Educator
My vision is to connect our babies to the goodness of the soil where everything good originates: from our food, our healing, our health, our joy, our wonder and our traditional storytelling. I am convinced that children relate to nature through cultural values and stories - things their families did or their communities cherished and remember. In order to teach, we need to connect to those stories, creativity and cultural values its what will ground us.
