Earth Day explorations with Hearty Roots
Thirteen lucky Earth Day adventurers joined together for a Hearty Roots pop-up camp in celebration of our planet and its beautifully interdependent ecosystems. At Pemaquid Beach, participants leaned into the notion of “one person’s trash is another person’s treasure,” and built a shop with found items they could trade, upgrade, and investigate. The kids, ages 6-12, collected and removed three bags of trash from the dunes, and discovered how winter storms changed the landscape of the dunes due to sand loss. Hearty Roots creates local outings for kids to help them discover how stewardship, care and awareness can make us all better stewards of ourselves and our community—and this pop-up day was no exception. Every kid wanted a clean beach and worked hard to make the endeavor fun! On a large, long trunk of driftwood, the Earth Day participants created a showcase gallery of sand dollars, sea glass, and sand-tumbled rocks that was a perfect compliment to the wild ocean.
Hearty Roots is a local non-profit youth organization that believes all kids matter, and their inclusive year-round programs intentionally offer opportunities that meet every kid where they’re at, developmentally and emotionally. Hearty Roots fosters resilience in Midcoast Maine youth through a fusion of social-emotional and outdoor adventure programming. For more information on monthly pop-up camps, after-school outing clubs or summer adventures, journey on over to heartyroots.org.