Community Programs

 The Trust offers FREE public programs to the local community . Our goal with our public programs is to encourage people of all ages to get outside and connect with nature while learning environmental and conservation  principals. 

For parents of pre-schoolers and pre-school children, we offer animal adaptation and conservation programs through the organization Parents As Teachers. For school-aged children, we run programs at local libraries in Haywood and Jackson counties in conjunction with The North Carolina Arboretum’s ecoEXPLORE Program.

For families and adults, we run regular programs at local parks like Pinnacle Park outside of Sylva, NC. These park programs include guided naturalist hikes and citizen science opportunities, such as moth night, bioblitzes, fungi hikes, and botanical hikes.  We also run a Bird Festival every year in May in Sylva, NC in conjunction with World Migratory Bird Day.

For adults, we run a monthly Naturalist Club at the Jackson Co. library, focusing on nature connection and phenology.  and are working on creating a Clean Streams program to involve adults in monitoring local watershed and stream health. Additionally, we are very interested in working with local community groups to offer a la carte nature and environmental programming and tabling local festivals and events, whey our capacity allows for it. Want to talk to us about a program or event?  Please reach out to our Education Outreach Coordinator, Gina.