Our Work
Smokey House Center is a non-profit organization dedicated to youth, land and learning. On 5,000 acres in rural Vermont we practice careful land management that is both ecologically sound and economically productive. We engage local, at-risk youth in our farm and forestry work so that they gain the tools needed to become confident and competent adults who assume productive roles in our communities. Over 36 years, our Youthwork and Field Studies programs have helped thousands of disadvantaged young people in southern Vermont graduate from high school and develop the skills, habits, and attitudes they need to become contributing members of society. At Smokey House Center, we cultivate nutritious food, healthy land, a vital local economy, and resilient young people.
Smokey House Center’s work-based learning program, the Youthwork Program, augments classroom learning. Local high school students—identified as at risk of dropping out of school and being unemployable—spend five afternoons a week during the school year, and four full days a week in summer, at Smokey House. The program engages these youth in the hands-on management of our farm and forest; the youthworkers grow Christmas trees and organic vegetables, raise and process livestock, design and maintain trails, do carpentry and forestry work, and market their agricultural and forest products to the community through a CSA and weekly farmers’ market. The young people work in crews of six, each guided by an experienced leader who facilitates the daily work and learning tasks as supervisor, mentor, and instructor. Two to four crews of six students run in the school year and up to five crews in the summer.
Over 900 students from eight area schools have participated intensively in the Smokey House Environmental Field Studies Program since its inception. The program involves middle school students in ongoing ecological research to monitor changes in the local environment. Students use the land reserve as a research plot to collect data that is either linked to state and national scientific studies or to the actual management of the reserve. Groups of students come to Smokey House generally for two- to four-week sessions of field studies, such as conducting timber inventories, tagging migrating butterflies, tracking mammals, and testing water quality. The Field Studies Program replaces their regular classroom and students earn academic credit from their schools for their work at Smokey House. Beyond practicing scientific investigation and method, this program helps young people apply reading, writing, mathematics, communication, and team skills to real place-based questions.
Youth, land and learning are inextricably interwoven at Smokey House. Ecologically sound and sustainable land management is a key aspect of our education programs. Smokey House manages its forestland according to guidelines for sustainability established jointly with the New England Forestry Foundation, the organization holding our conservation easements. Our current ten year forestry plan takes into account multiple values: timber harvesting, wildlife habitat and corridors, protection of fragile and significant areas, soil health, aesthetics, and the ecology of the property as a whole. For nearly forty years, 600 acres of Smokey House’s agricultural land have been leased by three local farm families. As this generation of farmers transitions off the land, Smokey House now has an opportunity to integrate these three farms into its programming and land use plan. We are investing in the farming infrastructure on the property and have recently leased our first farm to a young, entrepreneurial farmer who started his dairy herd with 80 cows in mid-April.
