There's a collective buzz around the farm these days — and it's not just the honeybees enjoying the spring prairie wildflowers. Students return to the farm this week for a summer packed with hands-on learning, real work experience, and plenty of those you-had-to-be-there moments in the chicken coop.
Summer Farm Camp is back for its second growing season, welcoming nearly 100 campers ages 6–12 from Wisconsin and Illinois. For one week, they'll harvest, care for animals, seed, play farm games, make crafts, and simply enjoy being outdoors together. There's nothing quite like hearing all those little voices and that laughter filling the farm again.
Jeff's LEAF class (Land, Environment, Animals & Food) returns with students earning both high school honor's credit during the height of the farming season. This year, they'll also serve as mentors to our Farm Campers — showing the younger kids how the older ones do it. We love watching students step into the leaders we know they can be.
Farm Business Interns will keep the whole Miller family busy this summer. Like last year's class, they'll learn the art and science of beekeeping from beekeeper Gavin himself, then dive into the Farm Store to tackle real-world business challenges facing Gavin's Honey. We can't wait to see the creative solutions they bring.
Summer Inclusion Manufacturing Camp will join us for several days, bringing special needs high school students to the farm. They'll master our mechanized egg-washing machine, explore our looms, and work on weaving projects. We love weaving them — pun intended — into our other activities so everyone shares the experience together.
Workforce Development students from Grayslake District 127 and Lake Forest Academy will train with us in the Farm Store and support our nonprofit's communications work, gaining meaningful, practical experience along the way.
And finally, Family Camps arrive in June and July! Born from requests by camp families who wanted to "go to camp, too," these sessions give families a taste of what farm life is really like — working and playing together out on the land.
None of this happens without you. You make this farm a place where a six-year-old discovers where eggs come from, a teenager finds their confidence, and a family reconnects over something real. Someday, one of this summer's campers will grow their own food, or teach someone else to — and that ripple starts right here. Thank you for being part of it.
