Holler Creek School

02/23/2025

Winter wonderland at its best! ❄️ From discovering animal tracks in the snow to finding giant chunks of ice on the “farm beach” each adventure is full of magic. After exploring, we warm up by the wood stove for stories, reading, and crafts ✂️ 🎨🌲🔥 ”

12/03/2024

This Giving Tuesday, consider a donation to help Holler Creek School grow! Your donation will help us expand to serve more families in and around Grayson County, VA 🌳

12/03/2024

We have so much to be thankful for! The warm fall days exploring the ‘farm beach’ and widened creeks created by Helene, finding a healthy population of macro invertebrates, chasing chickens and collecting eggs. We are thankful for our dedicated director, Ms. M who is helping map the future and growth of Holler Creek School. Together with Ms. G our students are eager to read, sing, dance, and explore. Next summer, our school will be able to serve more families, with the addition of another teacher! Stay tuned while we build a plan for 2025-2026. And as always, THANK YOU to our founders Melanie Schrage, and Aaron Sebens, who planted the roots of place based, outdoor learning, here in Grayson County, Virginia

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10/10/2024

Welcome to the new Holler Creek School!
Founded by Aaron Sebens and Melanie Schrage in Cana, VA in 2021, Holler Creek is a unique place where nature and education intertwine. The school has blossomed into a vibrant, nature-based, community-focused learning environment that emphasizes outdoor educational experiences. Families from Carroll, Grayson and the surrounding areas recognize the need for this special style of education.
Although the founders have moved away from Cana, their vision lives on through the dedication of parents, Candice and Ian Stevenson. Together with the community, efforts have been made to adapt their farm in Elk Creek, VA for continued learning. The school enjoyed a fantastic start to the year, sparking curiosity and adventure during the first two weeks before being temporarily rescheduled due to Hurricane Helene. Now more than ever, the community needs a bright spot like Holler Creek School to inspire and uplift the future of our children.
As we continue to build a foundation for the new Holler Creek School, students will connect with local farmers and artisans while exploring the breathtaking beauty of the Appalachian region. With invaluable support from the school’s founders, there is a commitment to preserving and expanding the mission of place-based outdoor education in Grayson County Virginia.
The dedicated Holler Creek team, include our director/teacher and assistant, who are eager to guide students through immersive learning experiences that celebrate the wonders of nature.
At Holler Creek School, children will explore the joys of the farm, interact with friendly goats and chickens, and engage in hands-on activities that foster a deep appreciation for the environment. Through outdoor exploration, creative projects, and collaborative learning, students will develop critical thinking skills, build strong connections with their surroundings, and cultivate a lifelong love for learning.
Join us on this exciting journey! Together, the community will honor and continue the legacy of Holler Creek School in Elk Creek, VA, inspiring the next generation of learners. The adventures await!

09/13/2024

BIG changes for HCS are here! Our directors for the past 3 years are relocating for family reasons, and we would like to welcome our new director, Candice, and our new lead teacher, Justine. The school is moving to Elk Creek, VA, under this new leadership. We will miss our community support in Cana and have loved connecting with folks there, but look forward to the next chapter in our organization.

Here is a letter from our departing directors, Melanie and Aaron:

Four years ago, we felt a pull towards the Blue Ridge and a call to open a school there. We set up the nonprofit organization, put together a board of directors, renovated indoor and outdoor learning spaces, and invited families to tour and enroll their children at Holler Creek School of Appalachian Ecology. For three years, we used the place-based model to guide all our curriculum, fieldwork, and connection to our surroundings and community to foster learning.

This spring, we let our families know that we, the directors, founders, and teachers at Holler Creek, would be relocating to Durham, where we lived from 2009-2021. This was an incredibly difficult decision for us because Holler Creek was thriving and we loved living there. However, our own kids were aging out of HCS, and it seemed like the right time for starting a new chapter for our family. We already miss our little school in the mountains, our walks to and from the creek with our students, the changing colors, the AHA! math moments in the outdoor classroom, the weekly nature journaling, the butterfly study and migrating hawks of September. Most of all, we miss our students that we got to know so well.

As our family begins again in Durham, Holler Creek School is actually beginning again as well! Candice Stevenson, the mother of one of our kindergarteners last year bravely and boldly decided that her family had found exactly the kind of school experience they wanted for their children, and she was not going to let HCS go. With our complete support and excitement, Candice has moved into the position of President of the Board of Directors at HCS. She has hired a new teacher, Justine McLaughlin, and renovated a new space on their family's beautiful land in Elk Creek, VA, still in the Blue Ridge Mountains, about an hour from the school's old location in Cana, VA.

Next week, Holler Creek School at Elk Creek will start a new school year! Seeing the organization continue beyond our leadership is the best scenario we could have wished for. They are starting this year with a group of preschool through first grade children, and their plan is to expand each year to include older grades as well. Their mission and philosophy remain the same, and we fully expect the new teacher and new location to guide the school in evolving to serve its new families well.

We are so grateful to everyone who has supported us over the past four years. You helped Holler Creek School happen, and together we made a huge impact on a group of children and families who have experienced learning in a way that we hope will benefit them throughout their lives.

Thanks to new leadership and continued support from donors and community members, Holler Creek continues to create opportunities for radical rural education in the remarkable Blue Ridge area. Our website and social media accounts will remain the same and will be updated by our new team, so keep in touch!

05/21/2024

We had a great end of the year at Holler Creek with bird cards and models, our neighbors inviting us to a picnic, a hike to our neighborhood waterfall to cool off, yearbooks made by one of the students, and a great end of year project share and graduation with lots of support from families.

05/02/2024

We packed up and headed all the way across the state last week and learned so much out east. We got to see archeology in action at Jamestown, drove over and under the bay to our own private beach at Kiptopeke, saw bald eagles, dolphins, a sea slug and had lots of great time by the campfire. We got a whole crew of new Junior Rangers sworn in and tried to duplicate the Wright Brothers first flight. Thanks to Ranger Lydia at Eastern Shore National Wildlife Refuge and Ranger Manny at First Landing State Park for teaching us about coastal birds, horseshoe crabs, and diamondback terrapins!

03/24/2024

The flowers and trees have been busy on the mountain and so have we! Students completed their own maps of Virginia and the Holler Creek campus, weighed our new baby pigeon, visited Gayle at the bookmobile, and did fieldwork at Pilot Mountain and the beautiful Sidna Allen house. So many great resources, both people and places in our community!

03/09/2024

Holler Creek will complete its 3rd school year in just a couple of months! We are so grateful for the continued support of donors, enrolled families, and the generous, knowledgeable folks that offer our school their time and skills. Our directors are moving on to their next chapter after this school year to best meet their family's needs, so our school is currently re-envisioning what we can offer the community next fall and beyond.

We are planning to shift the grades we offer to a younger group of 4-7 year olds (pre-k through 1st grade). In order to do this, we need to find just the right person to fill this role as lead teacher and director! The ideal candidate will be an experienced teacher who is self-directed, motivated, organized, creative, resourceful, and loves our region, working with young children, and being outside. If you or someone you know might be interested in applying, please share this with them.

A full description of the position and how to apply can be found at hollercreek.org/employment

The photos attached show just a glimpse of the work and play that 4-7 year olds can do at HCS!

01/21/2024

We had an exciting week of weather and outdoor play at school last week! Hunting for interesting icicles in the creeks, sliding on logs in the woods, sledding, snowball fights, studying wind and building kites to fly on our hills kept us busy and outside a lot of the day, even when our math and reading and writing were mostly happening inside.