Far from the edge of the tree line near Leverett Elementary School — deep into the woods and through snow, sticks and hills — Neill Bovaird lets out a “COOUUEEEEE,” and looks out into the trees, waiting to hear a response.
As he gets closer to the group of children and staff playing in those woods, he can let out another call and get a response. But the noise of children’s laughter is also a good tip off to where the group might be.
The call is something unique to Bovaird’s after school program for area kids, called Wolf Tree. It’s an intentionally kid-friendly way to stay in contact with the group if someone is separated, and its born from the idea that it needed to be different from when a parent calls a kid’s name to bring them inside for dinner or homework.
“I used to hate it when my mom called my name,” Boviard said with a laugh.
The program is built around small ideas with a big impact — like the call — that keep the atmosphere of the program more kid-centric, rather than it being adults telling children what to do. It’s something that has made the program a success as it’s grown to include four programs in Montague, Leverett, Deerfield and Gill, in addition to summertime and school vacation programs.
The number of children in the program has changed, but the mission hasn’t. It started 10 years ago with just one kid, according to Bovaird.
Wolf Tree gets its name from a nickname for one of the largest, oldest trees in any forest. Wolf trees are ecological markers, according to Bovaird, that can be identified by the way its lower branches grow outward, because there was once much more space around it.
This program isn’t wilderness survival training or structured environmental education, but is instead a program teaches kids skills through group activities and play. Each program is one day a week throughout a semester, and Wolf Tree also has programs during school vacation weeks and summer vacation.
Participants do a range of activities — they might build a fire, make maple syrup, play games, identify animal tracks and plants or build things out of parts of trees.
Instructors stress that it’s less about the content of the activities and more about how those activities become a conduit for personal development of the kids, as well as what they take away from the experience.
Moses Draper, a staffer at the Leverett program, said kids need less structured time outside to help develop, and that’s something that’s really undervalued in today’s world.
“What we’re after is some really solid kid time,” Draper said.
For the kids, it might be a few years before the lessons and skills from Wolf Tree sink in, but that’s OK with the adults.
Griffin Connor, 12, recently started middle school in Amherst, but still drops in at the Leverett program to see his friends. He said the program helped him learn so many different things, but what he valued most was the friends he made and the sense of community in the program.
“I just really like all of the people here, they are fun to be around,” he said.
Connor said attending the program really changed him. He learned about nature and wilderness, and also became less of a picky eater.
“It expanded my mind in so many ways,” he said.
Bovaird said the programs are a place where kids can feel safe to be themselves — away from adults that have a specific role in their lives, like parents and teachers.
He said he often gets parents who say the their kids come home from Wolf Tree completely different, often more focused and well-mannered.
They ask what his secret is, which Bovaird said is fairly simple. Bovaird said that by giving kids time to play outside in a community, it often meets a need kids aren’t getting by sitting in a classroom for so much of the day.
“They come out so vibrant and alive,” Bovaird said.
Parents often ask Bovaird for more once they see promising results, but Bovaird keeps each program at just once a week.
He said it’s important for students to be outside and interact with the wilderness, but to also understand that spending time outdoors does not make up the entirety of their reality. Just like with other activities, it’s important to make sure there’s a balance in the kids’ lives, and he doesn’t want them to feel like an alien in society because they spend too much time in the wilderness.
Part of what he and the other staffers do is strive to make sure all kids feel validated. He said kids are allowed to have and express any opinions here, as long as they aren’t hurtful to other participants.
“You’re accepted for who you are here,” Bovaird said.
Most of the survival skills, like learning to make a fire without matches, don’t have a practical application for the kids’ day-to-day lives, but what they learn about themselves while building a fire does.
Maggie Ranen, a first year staffer at the Montague program, said the programs and activities like these are often what kids need to learn to be able to work in groups and figure out how they want to contribute to their greater community and world.
“It’s about the relationships we form with ourselves, the group and the land,” Ranen said.
Yet, still it’s difficult to put into words exactly why the program works and how it helps kids, other than being emotionally and physically healthy to be outside playing, the adults say.
“A lot of kids will say, ‘You know, I don’t remember why I liked Wolf Tree, I just played outside and came home covered in mud and it was great,’ and that’s kind of the point,” Draper said.
Wolf Tree still has spots available in it’s April vacation day camp. The camp runs from April 17 to 21 and from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. each day. Visit: wolftreema.com.