Alder Creek Children’s Forest (ACCF), a charitable nonprofit organization, serves two of Oregon’s greatest treasures: our youth and our natural resources. We offer a place, partnerships, and programs designed for young citizens to learn to work together to create healthy, sustainable forests, watersheds, and communities.

Description:
Following is more detailed information on key terms in our mission statement: ACCF’s place is a 78 acre mixed-coniferous forest located one mile west of Canyonville in south Douglas County, and situated in the 2300 acre Alder-Jordan Creek watershed. Our forest and watershed learning activities are supplemented by an online interface, including a GIS and course management system. Our partnership network provides connections with other students and educators, community volunteers, technical and educational specialists, and private and public organizations, offering diverse resources, perspectives, and expertise. Our educational programs stress an experiential “open DORE” approach in which students Do projects, Observe the results of their activities, Relate their observations to others’ observations and then Experiment anew. Students practice this approach by participating in the planning and management of our forest and watershed. Young citizens are our primary audience, especially those from south Douglas County. What we offer prepares youth to meet school requirements while playing an informed role as public citizens in natural resource decisions now and in future. We stress learning to work together, emphasizing civil communications among our youth and partners, and creating collaborative solutions to natural resource issues. The terms healthy and sustainable reflect broadly supported yet complex goals of natural resource management in the United States. Examples include the President’s Healthy Forests Initiative, and the State of Oregon’s Sustainability Initiative to harmonize ecological, economic, and social needs. Finally, the threefold focus on forests, watersheds, and communities suggests our stress on context: we treat forests as situated in watersheds, and watersheds as situated amidst the communities that depend on them.

History:
The story of Alder Creek Children's Forest starts with Robert and Virginia Proctor of Canyonville, Oregon. Bob and Ginny were active in community and educational service in southern Douglas County for over fifty years. They also took a keen interest in their forest: Bob participated in the Oregon Small Woodlands Association, and Ginny took frequent wildflower walks in the forest. When Bob and Ginny passed away, their children devoted the land they inherited to continue Bob and Ginny's spirit of serving educational and community needs in the region.

Starting in the late 1990s, son Jim met with community and government leaders, educators, natural resource management agencies, and representatives of a wide spectrum of advocacy organizations to build a consensus around possible educational use of the Proctor forestland. These people had many different views about forest policy, but they all believed in working toward a future marked more by consensus and communication than the conflict and litigation that has so often hampered any true resolution of forest and natural resource controversies in the Pacific Northwest.

And they also agreed on a strategy to work toward a better future: focus on the children, the next generation of Oregonians. Encourage them to learn, and exchange opinions, and make up their own minds. Give them an opportunity for experiential forest and watershed education devoted to a sustainable future, and let them learn from their own choices.

Thus, the name Alder Creek Children's Forest was born: Alder Creek is a stream that runs through the Proctor forest, and the children's forest concept of hands-on management by youth is our unique focus. Alder Creek Children's Forest was thus formed as an Oregon nonprofit corporation on October 25, 2002, and now looks forward to a bright future working alongside the hardworking, talented, visionary youth of the region.

Contact people:

Gabriel Engeland, Program Coordinator, (phone), (email) Jim Proctor, President, ACCF Board of Directors, (phone), (email)

Address:

P.O. Box 1300 Canyonville, OR 97417

Web Site: http://www.aldercreek.org

Directions:

Alder Creek Children's Forest is located one mile west of Canyonville, on the Canyonville-Riddle Road.   Nearest Bus Stop: N/A