The Shepherd's Nook

If you've looked into Montessori adolescent educational experiences at all, you may have heard that she advocated "farm schools" where teens get close to the land and set up a store to sell what they produce. Along with this idea, we considered how adolescents, especially 12-to-15-year-olds, but even extending to 18-year-olds, mirror the first plane of development (the journey from infant/toddler to child). In that first plane, children respond beautifully to "real" work, such as practical life exercises like sweeping, dusting, pouring real water in real glass pitchers, etc. This work is energizing, not tiring, and often results in a peacefulness and joy that is palpable.

For the Third Plane of development (12-18 years), we (teens and adults) considered that the youth is now passing through a journey from childhood to adulthood. New powers appear (along with full-sized bodies!) and these youth also need "real work" in order to develop them. To this end, we included "guild work" in our plan for gathering with young people. Often with other approaches to teen formation, "service opportunities" for teens are simple and planned or chosen mostly by adults. For something to qualify for one of our guilds, there are two rules:

1. It has to help somebody.
2. It has to build a real skill. 

About once per month last year, we had a guild day. Guilds so far have been pretty simple: woodburning and painting figures for the parish Level III atrium, making rope rosaries to send to an army chaplain we know, making an unusual meal (involving bok choy!) for someone who had surgery, and learning how to crochet so they could make scarves for cancer patients who struggle with chemo that makes cold air feel like knives. We'll also post sometime about our retreat to a nearby Benedictine Abbey where we traded labor (a lot of cleaning!) for a discount on room and board for an amazing weekend retreat.

Midyear, we came up with the idea of staring our own little CGS thrift store where people could make donations of unused materials (or used, broken, in-need-of-repair materials), and refurbish them and sell them to atria that are in need. The teens also wanted to make "prayer table sets" that families could use in their homes. Through the grace of God, in less than a week we had secured the possibility of space. This summer, we took a day and cleaned out the storage room that was donated for our use. We also helped out our benefactors with some gardening work as a big thank you! See pictures!

Soon we will be ready to take donations of atrium materials (which we will photograph and make available on our website). The teens will be working with mentors to set up the website, a board to run the store/handle finances, and coordinate "pick up days" and "donation days" once or twice a month for people in the Des Moines area to pick up their orders. As of right now, we have no idea what to expect for income from our store, but for now we plan to use the proceeds to pay for our activities and trips. 

We'll be making a facebook event very soon for our first donation days! If you have small tables/lamps, wooden child-sized chairs, small pitchers/bowls/trays, or any CGS-related items that are just collecting dust, bring them to us! We'd like to work together with you and our local atria to support CGS in our region. We're calling our venture "The Shepherd's Nook."