NEST Alumni Comments

"For me, your NEST program, my experience with it, was very rewarding. I learned things and experienced things that surprised me, not an easy feat after 54 well-traveled years."

"Absolutely changed my life!  I've been afraid of kayaks for 30 years but NEST offered me a safe and free environment to try one more time.  I'm not as old as I thought.  It was a tremendous confidence booster to find that I really love kayaking!"

"I enjoyed doing the NEST program a lot.  I especially enjoyed the Arts portion.  FABULOUS!!!  I have done lots of outdoor things on and around streams, but never had such a wonderful experience as  making outdoor environmental art. I also really, really enjoyed the journaling and the reflection activities.  Great discipline....great questions....great activities.  WONDERFUL."

"Thank you very much for the NEST program.  It was just what I needed to feel connected to my community.  I've been begging my husband for us to leave the area and now I no longer want to.  There's too much to do here! "

"Thanks for this opportunity. The outreach to, and engagement of, ordinary citizens is necessary but a difficult challenge. You asked some interesting questions about community; your very project created a community, albeit a temporary one. Even an outsider like me can see connections were made, links formed, ideas shared that will continue to trickle through the web of people you reached with the program, across time and place."

"The NEST program is one of the best things I have ever participated in."

"I especially liked the structure to the NEST program.  If I had signed up for these activities on my own, I would probably not have ended up going to as many as I did...would have found some excuse not to go...had a cold, etc.  I made a commitment and I was not going to break it!" 

"I LOVE NEST! All of my friends were jealous because I kept telling them about the awesome stuff I was doing, like kayaking in the moonlight and making rock sculptures. Awesome."

"I'm 60 years old and outdoor activities have always been a major part of my life - I signed up for NEST because it sounded like fun.  I did not expect to learn much or to have an "attitude adjustment."  I learned a lot more than I expected - I thought I understood what a watershed is, but I have a much better idea now, and the information about soil and invasive plants was a real eye-opener.  I look at the woods I hike through with different eyes now."

"This NEST thing works; I've been noticing more of the things around me. Fantastic idea."

"I have already experienced two occasions where the education has been useful in my own neighborhood."

"I like how the [dissertation] survey made me think about my sense of community.  It broke out the levels and the details of what and who make up a community - and then made us think about our level of connection to each."