Teaching outside the box: ENC school educating life along with basics

PAMLICO COUNTY, N.C. (WNCT) — A new school in Pamlico County is educating younger generations about agriculture through hands-on learning.

Whispering Creek Farm Academy aims to give students a nature-based experience, teaching them about farming.

Most people think of preschool as children learning basic things like shapes, colors and numbers. At Whispering Creek, Founder Kim Trudo is going above and beyond while teaching those basics by also teaching children how to plant, explore nature and about animals.

“I could make a lot of money having a petting zoo or birthday parties, but that’s not what I’m interested in doing. I want children to learn it personally,” Trudo said. “I don’t want it to be just, you know, a quick trip in and out. I want children to embrace it. We’re going to have a miniature horse. Her name is Gypsy. We’re going to have a micro mini cow whose name is Molasses. He’s tiny, tiny, tiny and very gentle. Very sweet. And we have two goats, miniature fainting goats and then chickens that the children will help care for each day. And they’ll take care of them. They’ll feed them, they’ll give them snacks. They’ll love on them.”

The students will also have a playground and obstacle course which is under construction thanks to people from Hope Mission.

“Within Hope Mission, we have a recovery program and we focus on poverty, homelessness and substance use. And the initial contact came from Pamlico County Community College and they had reached out about a month ago and said Kim was looking for some help,” Director of Peer Recovery Center at Hope Mission John Sotirkys said. “They’ve been helping to assemble Kim’s playground and an obstacle course. So we looked at her vision board and kind of put an idea together of what she wanted and how we were going to accomplish that. And every Saturday, we just been coming out and knocking away at it.”

With more time to enroll, Trudo has plans to welcome as many students as she can to her farm. “I want to put children back in nature. I want them to be involved in nature, in knowing where our food comes from, having a hand in that understanding that animals all have souls and are sentient and so they need to be cared for as well,” Trudo said.

THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL IS SEPTEMBER NINTH AND IS OPEN THREE DAYS A WEEK FOR 4 AND 5 YEAR OLDS… AS WELL AS HOME SCHOOLED CHILDREN AGES FOUR TO SEVEN.
TRUDO LOOKS FORWARD TO INSPIRING A NEW GENERATION OF STUDENTS HERE IN THE COMMUNITY.

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