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Cedar Bend Folk School
Box 668
Osceola, WI 54020
(715) 294 - 4048 (farmhouse)
(715) 294-1689 (Orchard House)
Email pcomfarm@centurytel.net
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Vision: Cedar Bend Folk School as a Cooperative Cultural/Retreat Center

Folk Education was originally developed as "informal adult learning" based on a farm and has contributed to major cultural changes over a 135-year history in Scandinavia, Canada and the U.S. In Denmark, Folk Schools helped the peaceful transition from monarchy, and through "enlivenment of the folk, " helped young farmers learn practical and cultural skills to become active citizens in the new democracy. In the U.S. this movement has taken many forms, from study circles and family camps, to centers preserving folk arts (e.g. Campbell Folk School in North Carolina, the Clearing in Door County, WI, North House Folk School in Grand Marais, MN) and promoting social justice and citizen participation in the solution of major social, economic and environmental problems.

For example, Highlander Folk School in Appalachia has served as a training ground for labor organizing in the coal mines in the '30's and 40's, the civil rights movement of the '50's and '60's, environmental and economic justice in the '70's and '80's. Miles Horton, Septima Clark, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Bernice Robinson and others began the Freedom Schools so that African Americans could gain the right to vote. Guy and Candie Carawan and Zilphia Horton helped to preserve the rich Appalachian folk music heritage, document the music of the protest movements and popularize the now famous hymn to dignity, "We Shall Overcome."

In Scandinavia, Folk Schools and study circles have continued to be an important part of youth transitions to adulthood, adult continuing education and life-long learning. In the upper Midwest region there is growing interest in this form of "cultural enlivenment" with the North House Folk School on the North Shore of Lake Superior, Clearwater Folk School on the South Shore, and HopeWork Folk School in the Twin Cities.

The Cedar Bend Folk School has been host to a variety of educational and social ventures over the last 12 years, including family camps, retreats, workshops, study circles and gatherings which have resulted in Standing Cedars Community Land Conservancy, the Blufflands Alliance, the Minnesota and Western Wisconsin Community Farmers Guild, a three-year participatory research project on Community Supported Agriculture, 6 AmeriCorps NCCC team projects, 10 years of Youth Farm Camps (50 3-day camps with more than 600 urban kids participating), workshops on Participatory Research, wet-on-on wet painting, Environmental Education, Ecological Restoration, a controlled burn school, and residential service-learning 2-10 day class trips and camps by schools and organizations from Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota.

Beginning in 2006 we will convene a series of conversations with local neighbors and regional friends interested in Folk Education in the St. Croix Valley. Together with these founding members, we will work toward the establishment of the Cedar Bend Folk School as an independent, cooperative retreat center with Folk School-style educational programs. The following is an evolving outline of possible projects and interests that could be explored at such a center:

Cedar Bend Folk School
--a cooperative cultural center

Youth and Adult Leadership Development
- - -- Young Adult Mentorship (interns, AmeriCorps,)
- - -- Next generation project --transition to adulthood
- - -- Service learning farm and environment camps
- - - - - -* Youth Farm & Market Project -Farm Camp
- - - - - -* Youth Stewards
- - - - - -* National Youth Leadership Camp (NYLC)
- - -- - - * Amigos de las Americas
- - -- Youth Enterprises
- - -- Youth Hostel

Place-based Education
- - -- Folk Arts-- local history, music, crafts, puppets, woodworking, pottery ...
- - -- Home and Hearth building skills
- - -- Builder's School-Habitat for Community

Ecological restoration-how to restore local ecosystems
- - -- Earth Partnership for Schools (UW Arboretum)
- - -- Earth Partnership for Communities

Social Entrepreneurship
- - -- Community development catalyst/feasibility studies
- - - - - -* Model Agricultural TIF District
- - - - - -* Retreat Cooperative
- - - - - -* Local CSA marketing co-op
- - - - - -* Shared Kitchen
- - - - - -* Eldershire/Elderhostel
- - -- Learning Circles, Rocking Chair Symposia
- - - - - -* Convene local innovators for mutual support
- - - - - -* Focus interest on key community issues