We have families who come for a visit and register that same day. Their kids don't want to leave. They come back every week, and every week they feel more at home. The parents start to relax in a particular way. They stop hovering. They start talking to each other. Something they didn't even know they were looking for turns out to be here.

We also have families who email us and never write back. Families who visit once and disappear. Families who stay on our mailing list for a year without ever reaching out.

All of this is okay. We'd just rather you know, before you email us, whether you're likely to be the first kind of family or the second.

That's what this page is for.

You might be our people if...

You've read Peter Gray. Or John Holt. Or John Taylor Gatto. You read them and thought: yes. Exactly. That's it. Why doesn't everyone understand this?

You've been to Between the Rivers, or another ancestral skills camp, or a week-long wilderness program, and you thought: this is what childhood should feel like. What if it could feel this way every week?

Spokane still feels new to you, even if you've been here a while, and you're still looking for your people. 

Your child has never quite fit in the places that were supposed to be for children. "Too much energy." "Too sensitive." "Too different." "Too loud." Too whatever. Here, too much is exactly right.

You have an only child who wants friends. Real friends. Not kids they see once and never again.

You love being outside. You camp. You hike. Your family is always outside. The idea of your child spending three hours in a field, digging in the mud, climbing trees, building forts, and making real friends sounds like exactly what childhood should be.

You understand, or you are starting to understand, that play is learning. That boredom is productive. That children naturally know what they need, and that our job is to trust them.

You are starving for real community. Not a Facebook group. Not a park meetup with a rotating cast of strangers. A real, rooted, recurring community, where people know each other's names and show up week after week and build something real together.

A word about our bathroom situation

We have a camp toilet in a dedicated bathroom tent. We also encourage kids to find a tree.

If you read that and shrugged, you're probably fine.

If you have experience with camping, Scouting, outdoor education, or ancestral skills gatherings, this will feel completely normal. Our families who love us most tend to be exactly these families.

If the idea genuinely bothers you, that's okay too. It is much better to know now than to find out on your first visit.

You might not be ready for us yet if...

Your family just left conventional school. You're still deschooling. You're still figuring out what learning even looks like without a schedule, a curriculum, and an adult telling everyone what to do.

The Co-op might feel disorienting right now. Deschooling takes time, and that's okay. The families who come to us and immediately feel at home are almost always families who've already had some time to exhale. Give yourself that time. Come back when you're ready. We'll be here.

Your child needs structure right now. Needs someone to tell them what to do and when to do it. Needs a plan and a clear sense of what the day holds. We don't offer that. We offer freedom, community, and ten beautiful acres. For some kids, especially kids who are freshly out of conventional school, that much freedom can feel overwhelming at first. When kids are brand new to freedom, they ask, "What am I supposed to do?" There is no shame in that. It just means we might not be the right fit yet.

You're hoping we'll fill the academic gaps. That we'll make sure your child is keeping up (or catching up). That there will be lessons, learning objectives, and some way to measure progress, and grades, and homework. We understand the impulse. We just don't work that way.

You're thinking that going to homeschool park meetups, or joining a homeschool hiking group, is basically the same thing as what we offer. We understand why it might look that way. It isn't. A rotating cast of kids at a public park is not the same as a reliable, recurring community, on the same land, week after week, where kids are free to dig and build and develop real relationships over time. The difference becomes more visible the longer you're here.

What it feels like to be here

The first time you visit, you'll probably spend most of it watching.

You'll watch your child figure out what to do with three hours of freedom. This takes different kids different amounts of time. Some launch immediately. Some hang back and observe. Both are completely fine.

You'll watch the older kids with the younger kids. A twelve-year-old helping a five-year-old build something. A teenager who is, without quite realizing it, becoming a leader. Younger kids grow more secure just from being around older kids who treat them with patience and care. Older kids discover, often for the first time, that they are capable of mentoring someone. It changes both of them.

You'll watch the parents who've been coming for a while. They're relaxed in a particular way. They're not hovering. They're talking to each other, laughing, sitting in the sun. Every parent at the Co-op has passed a background check. Everyone here knows that. It changes the way you hold your shoulders.

What you might not expect is how much you'll want to come back. Not just your child. You.

Most of the moms who find us have been starving for community. Real community, not a Facebook group. Not a park meetup where you see different faces every time. The same people, the same land, week after week, building something together. Plenty of parents who don't have to stay anymore stay anyway, because this is what they were looking for too.

The kids grow in ways that are hard to describe until you've watched it happen. Most of them were shy when they first arrived. Quiet. Uncertain around other kids, around adults, around themselves. After a few months, you wouldn't recognize them. They speak freely. They share their ideas. They laugh easily. They look out for each other.

Watch them in a Rules Meeting sometime. Watch a nine-year-old articulate, clearly and calmly, how she wants to be treated. Watch a twelve-year-old listen, ask a follow-up question, and propose a solution that works for everyone in the circle. They are learning how to be part of a real community by being part of a real community, with real stakes. You can see it working.

They start having playdates. Then sleepovers. Then their families go on trips together. The friendships that form here are not the same as school friendships, where you sit near someone five days a week and call it closeness. These are chosen friendships, built slowly, on shared ground, between kids who actually sought each other out.

The best compliment we've ever received from a parent was: "This is like Between the Rivers."

That's exactly right. If you know what Between the Rivers is, and you love it, you might already understand what we're building here.

Ready to come see for yourself?

If you'd like to come and see it for yourself, schedule your first visit.

If you are ready to join any of our Gatherings, here's how to join.