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The mission of Shining Star Kids ™ is to enhance the life of a child through the world of nature.
Shining Star Kids ™ provides youngsters in need and at risk with the opportunity for recreation and growth
in a safe and nurturing environment. |
More people around the world visit zoos each year than watch all professional sports. It seems we have a greater need to affiliate with nature than to root for our favorite teams.
Shining Star Kids ™ provides a place for children and their families to come and be close to the natural world.
When a small creature's habitat is threatened, the plans of giant corporations grind to a stop until we can provide it with a place to heal and grow stronger. We certainly should do no less when a child's environment is precarious.
Parents, guardians and child care agencies work tirelessly to provide shelter, care and stability for the child in distress. Shining Star Kids ™ enhances their efforts by providing a natural setting in which a child can grow through the affiliation with nature that we sometimes refer to more simply as a love of life.
Shining Star Kids ™ offers our children shelter in a structured, supervised, age appropriate environment where hands-on outdoor experience is a central focus.
Exploring and understanding nature is the basis of our understanding each other and our place on this planet. Why do plants send their roots down and their sprouts up? Why do frogs start singing at the same time every day? How can we tell the temperature by counting the number of cricket chirps in a minute? These questions all have answers.
More importantly, these questions make children curious.
For some children, a nature experience will be the single, most powerful influence in understanding themselves -- not just observing nature but being a part of it.
Curiosity leads them to explore a world far more vast and diverse than they had ever imagined. The young person who sees how very little things survive next to much larger ones gains more than just a fun, healthy outing. The youngster, who has experienced himself or herself as endangered, begins to sense that the world can actually be nurturing and safe, where even it's smallest creatures have the ability to make a living as they go about their daily creature routines.
We know children grow from these times with the natural world. Sometimes lives are changed forever.
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