When searching for camps, Laurie Sasso of West Windsor identified the Fernbrook Farms Environmental Education Center as a place where her two very active sons could enjoy daily the quintessential summer experience: explore nature, get dirty, and return home exhausted.
“My sons love being outside,” Sasso says. “We are going on year seven now. Both have been in the camps since age six.”
In what has become a family tradition Sasso signs her sons up for two weeks of Fernbrook’s Fiddlehead Summer Day Camp, splitting their summers between other camps closer to home. The other camps include mountain biking and fishing camps through Mercer County sports camps, Triple Threat basketball through West Windsor Recreation, and the Bob Smith soccer camp in Robbinsville. Jonathan goes to Grover Middle School and Mark, who is a year younger, attends Village Elementary school.
A multi-acre farm site surrounded by woods, Fernbrook is located just south of Bordentown. Fernbrook offers busing transportation for an additional cost, so that campers can be picked up at their homes or at a nearby location in the morning and then be dropped off after 4 p.m.
Fernbrook began offering camps in 2005, and there are 70 to 100 campers per week. The outdoor camps are broken into four different age groups: 3-5; 5-6; 6-11; and 12-14.
Many of the camp activities take place in the woods. Campers go on hikes and search for wildlife and plants. Summer cannot be without cool water, and there is a creek for swimming, or cannonballs, and fishing with handmade poles.
“Digging in the dirt, discovering new plants, looking for creatures, touching animals and bugs, that’s what my boys like,” Sasso says. “They can explore and appreciate nature in an open environment. When they are not out exploring, they play a lot of games, there is a big meadow there.”
Sasso adds: “They also just love hanging out at the farm with all the animals, and catching and holding the chickens. My son found a huge caterpillar, one of the largest they’ve seen at the farm.”
Sasso and her husband, Robert Sauer, moved to West Windsor in 2004, just before Mark’s birth. They are both from the area: Sasso grew up in Titusville and Sauer is from Bridgewater. She works for Johnson & Johnson, and he works for an engineering consulting firm.
“I’m a working parent. I’m looking for camps to keep them both physically and mentally stimulated,” Sasso says. “I decided to give Fernbrook a try. I didn’t know anyone from the area who went to the camp.”
This summer will be Jonathan’s seventh year at the camp, and Sasso says he is excited to be moving on to Fernbrook’s Young Stewards program for the 12 to 14 age group, which has weekly adventures that include overnight camping, kayaking, and visits to the Appalachian Trail and the Pine Barrens.
Sasso is especially impressed with the counselors who guide and structure the young campers’ explorations.
“They are young, college educated, extremely knowledgeable in ecology, nature, biology. They can actually explain to the kids what they are seeing, what they are doing. I think that’s really special,” Sasso says.
For more information visit www.fernbrookeducation.org/camps or call 609-298-4028. Extended day programs available.
