With the annual Two Coyotes Family Fun Day coming up, and registration for the local wilderness school’s summer camps now open, Two Coyotes Wilderness School Executive Director Justin Pegnataro expressed his excitement for the two seasons of offerings at the school this week.

The annual Two Coyotes Family Fun Day is slated for Sunday, April 26, from 1 pm to 4 pm, at Sticks and Stones Farm, 201 Huntingtown Road.

Two Coyotes Wilderness School offers kids aged 5 to 16 unique, ongoing, year-round outdoor programs, as well as summer camps. The school’s philosophy is derived from the book Coyote’s Guide to Connecting with Nature.

“It’s just like a great community celebration where folks can get a taste of what Two Coyotes is all about,” said Mr Pegnataro about the Family Fun Day. “They get to meet the instructors, play on the land, and connect with people who share their values.”

Two Coyotes Wilderness School has been offering programs at the Sticks and Stones site for about five years, according to Mr Pegnataro, who has been running programs with the wilderness school for eight years.

“This beautiful land allowed us to offer camps and a variety of programs,” said Mr Pegnataro, referring to Two Coyotes’ expansion to the site at Sticks and Stones Farm. “We run a home school program and a parent and me program called Coyotes Pups, and so the property here really has given us the freedom to be able to offer a lot of different kinds of programs for a lot of different kinds of people.”

Mr Pegnataro said it may be easy for people to think of Two Coyotes Wilderness School as an environmental education organization, but it is much more than that.

“For us, environmental education is secondary to personal [and healthy] development,” said Mr Pegnataro. “So our programs are long-term mentoring programs that help connect kids to what their gifts are. And really our vision is to create a generation of young adults of vision and character. It just so happens that nature is the ultimate place to do that for self-discovery and personal empowerment.”

Through running programs in nature, Mr Pegnataro said students learn a lot about the natural world through the process of self-discovery.

“They are getting something much deeper that is connecting them to their values and their gifts and emotional intelligence and creating a really safe place for them to express themselves,” he said. “And that is the heart of the work that we do.”

The emphasis on personal growth, according to Mr Pegnataro, was inspired by his own experience. After graduating from high school, Mr Pegnataro said he spent six months living in the woods to learn survival skills.

“The treasure I found was a treasure inside myself,” said Mr Pegnataro, who said he wanted to be a treasure hunter when younger, “and Two Coyotes is about unlocking the treasure within ourselves through that journey in nature.”

The journey is unique for everyone, but Mr Pegnataro said it helps to have a mentor who has also taken a personal journey.

“I really encourage people to come out to Family Fun Day to experience Two Coyotes,” he said.

Attending the Two Coyotes Family Fun Day, according to Mr Pegnataro, will help people understand “who we are and what we do.”

 The third annual Two Coyotes Family Fun Day is an open house event, which is held every year before summer camp season begins.

During the Two Coyotes Family Fun Day on April 26, food and beverages will be available, and activities will include making fire without matches, wildlife tracking, wild theater, gratitude circles, nature games, natural art, drumming, roasting marshmallows, wild edible plant hikes, and live music.

Parents attending the Two Coyotes Wilderness School Family Fun Day will be asked to remain with children during the family Nature Stations presentations. All participants who attend the family fun day will be eligible to win a free one week camp session. Camp volunteers and alumni will be on hand to discuss the camp experience and answer questions.

For more information or to RSVP, see twocoyotesfunday.eventbrite.com online.

Mr Pegnataro said Two Coyotes’ Bill Fischer, who is a contra dance caller, will oversee a family dance during the Family Fun Day, and he promised an “epic marshmallow roast” during the day.

“The great thing is people get a chance to track, they get a change to make fires, they get a chance to listen to stories, a chance to drum, a chance to make art, and a chance to see the land and meet our amazing instructors,” said Mr Pegnataro about Family Fun Day.

Registration for Two Coyotes summer camp has also begun.

According to Mr Pegnataro, the summer camps offered at the Newtown Two Coyotes Wilderness School location have grown in recent years.

“In 2012 we only had 30 campers,” he said, “and in 2014 we had 330 campers.”

The camp programs, he said, offer a childhood experience that “this generation, who is being raised on screens,” may not get a chance to experience. Mr Pegnataro said camp programs at Two Coyotes allow children the chance to play sneaking games, make campfires, walk barefoot through the mud, catch frogs, and other opportunities.

“In a lot of our programs children learn to thrive in a really dynamic changing situation, another word for nature,” said Mr Pegnataro.

When children grow in an indoor controlled environment, Mr Pegnataro said he believes the children are not allowed to grow and thrive as much as they could.

“So our programs are incredibly fun, but also challenging,” he said. “And [they] create a lot of room for growth, and create a really loving environment for the kids. They get to carve with knives, and make fires, and climb trees, and catch frogs.”

While Mr Pegnataro said each of the summer camps offered through Two Coyotes is “super amazing,” he said one of the most popular camps is Forts and Shelters.

“One of the new [camps] we have is Wild Plant Medicine and Food,” said Mr Pegnataro, “and we are actually going to be making plant medicine from plants that we harvest off the land, and we are going to be making a feast with the plants we harvest off the land and cooking it.”

Another camp Mr Pegnataro said he was excited about is a Wild Theater camp, which he said is a collaboration with Heather Henson, Adelka Polak, Anitra Brooks, and Karianna Rosenberg. The camp will be a two-week theater-based camp that will be held outside with natural props and materials. Mr Pegnataro said the Wild Theater camp was originally thought up by Chris Angstrom, one of the Two Coyotes’ original instructors, and offering it now is fulfilling Mr Angstrom’s concept.

Mr Pegnataro said each camp has 12 students overseen by a “highly skilled” instructor, and each camp day begins with a morning gratitude circle.

Other summer camp offerings include Woodland Arts; Feather, Fur and Fin; Magical Forest Theater; Advanced Survival; Scout Tracker; Wildwood Rangers; Wildwood Adventurers; and Fire Wood and Stone.

More information about the camps and registration information is available online at twocoyotes.org.