Michigan, North America -
Michigan Learning Retreat

Highlights

Bike the Kal-Haven Trail

This beautiful bike trail links the city of South Haven to Kalamazoo crossing charming countryside and tree-lined orchards. The trail is harmoniously shared by bikers, hikers, and the occasional horseback rider.

Saugatuck Dunes State Park

Saugatuck Dunes State Park offers 1,000 acres, 14 miles of hiking trails, 200-foot-high dunes, and a secluded 2.5 mile stretch of shoreline to roam freely

Lake Michigan Coastline

Explore the “Third Coast” of the United States, the 6^th largest lake in the world, and the only Great Lake located entirely in the US. Lake Michigan is home to the largest freshwater dune system in the world and 1,400 miles of pristine shoreline.

Social Interaction

Work together, spend time outside, and build lasting friendships.

 

 

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Overview

Activities

• Kayak:  Lower Kalamazoo River
• Bike: Kal-Haven Trail
• Hike: Saugatuck Dunes
• Explore: Beaches of Lake Michigan

Completing Grades

6-12 (Groups organized by age)

Duration

13 Days for one session

27 Days for two sessions

41 days for three sessions

Accommodations

Lodging is in a private home. Bedrooms will be divided by gender and participants will have their own beds. Showers are available. 

Tuition (Airfare and baggage fees not included)

$3,950

Arrive/Depart

Drop off and pick up with be at our private accommodations in Southwest Michigan. Exact location will be provided upon registration.

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Itinerary

Arrival (Day 1):

Settle into our private accommodations, play some ice-breaker games, share our first meal together, and get to know each other around the bonfire. 

Remote Schoolwork (Days 2-6 and 9-13):

We will work hard to create a daily schedule that allows for flexibility for classroom time, meal times, and breaks as each student’s school schedule allows. Rest assured, all students will attend their full day of classes and need to complete school work before participating in any activities. Additionally, program leaders will help ensure that students are attending their classes, doing homework themselves, and meeting with advisors, social workers, and other specialists as scheduled. Evenings will include structured free time as well as group activities. RLT leaders will assist the students to the same level that a parent would help, but our staff are not necessarily teachers or tutors. Essentially, our staff will be playing the same role as parents do in remote schooling. Our staff will be providing social and emotional support, helping ensure students are fulfilling their commitments, but leaving the teaching to the school teachers. 

Weekend Activities (Days 7-8):

Our weekends are spent exploring the great outdoors! We'll kayak along the Lower Kalamazoo River, hike the Saugatuck Dunes, swim in Lake Michigan, and bike the Kal-Haven Trail. 

Homeward Bound (Day 13):

Students will be picked up at the end of the school day on Day 13 (a Friday). They'll depart the Michigan Learning Retreat with confidence in their schoolwork, new friends, and lasting memories.

For those attending multiple sessions the itinerary above will repeat itself each session.  Additionally, those staying multiple sessions would remain in Michigan between sessions.

Hold your spot now: Click here to enroll!

COVID-19: Experience Mitigating Risk

This summer we successfully ran our Colorado Wolf Refuge program allowing students to get outside, socialize with their peers, and volunteer their time. After months of quarantine and increased exposure to technology, time in the outdoors has proven to be exactly what students needed. With an abundance of caution and well defined protocols, we were able to keep students safe, healthy, and happy. We are confident that we are able to continue offering life changing experiences in the outdoors, mitigating risk to keep students safe.

Need To Know!

Pertinent Notes Related to Traveling Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

• We will take extensive measures to create a self-contained, outdoor-based community of otherwise healthy young people.  Further, we will enact protocols and procedures informed by guidance from the CDC, American Camp Association, Michigan State and a team of physicians.

• To create an isolated cluster, each small group will sleep, eat, study, and do activities separately. In limited situations where groups cannot be separated, masks will be required. 
  

• All participants and staff will be required to be monitored and assessed prior to arrival, upon arrival, and beyond.

• For the two weeks prior to the program, we will ask every family to keep their child fully within their household quarantine. We will ask that other members of the household take all possible social distancing measures. We will also ask for families to take the temperatures of their participant for the two weeks prior to the program and monitor for COVID-19 symptoms.

• Proof of a negative COVID-19 viral test showing results within 2-4 days of departure will be required for participation

• There will be copious cleaning, sanitizing, handwashing and hand-sanitizing throughout the program

• There will be times when participants and staff are asked to wear masks (e.g., any trips into town, whenever in a vehicle, and when social distancing cannot be maintained)

The Risks Associated with Traveling Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

• Possible infection

• There is no way to keep our participants and leaders 100% safe from infection.  As such, if your child shows signs and symptoms of COVID-19, they will be isolated from the group and monitored closely by a dedicated trip leader. They will be tested upon isolation.

• If your child tests positive for COVID-19 you or another parent will be required to come to the private accommodations (or to a medical facility if hospitalized) at your own expense and (once physically stable) relocate your child, quarantining with them elsewhere before returning to your home.  We cannot accept your child on this program unless you or another parent is available for such an outcome.

• Should our team determine that further care is needed for any COVID-19 symptoms, such as difficulty breathing, we would take the participant to additional care at a medical facility; depending on the level of care needed, there are facilities within 5-10 miles of our location.
  

• Given the nature of this illness, we will not be able to accept any participants that the CDC considers to be of high risk.  We will ask you to obtain physician approval prior to departure to assert that your child can participate in this program.

• There are several idiosyncratic exposure risks associated with this program

• Trips into town to participate in kayaking and bike riding are possible exposure points. Participants will be required to wear a mask and participate in social distancing from the public. 

• We will have the same six staff members throughout the duration of the program.  A possible contamination point is that a staff member could become infected during the first session of the program and transmit the infection to the participants in the second session.  Like our participants, we are prepared to quarantine a staff member should symptoms surface.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION RELATED TO COVID-19

METHODOLOGY

From the beginning of this process, the prevailing idea is that we could create our own bubbles at an isolated, outdoor space, taking care of everyone within their bubbles while minimizing exposure to outside groups.

While we appreciate the support and trust you have continued to voice in our abilities, we are not experts in global pandemics. We are only wise enough to know that we needed to rely on a litany of experts and authoritative sources. We now have guidance from the CDC, the State of Michigan, and a Field Guide for Camps put together by the American Camp Association with the help of a top public health consulting firm. We are lucky to have many parents and alumni within our own community who have been able to lend a great deal of expertise on all fronts. We have spoken with dozens of health care professionals including infectious disease doctors, public health specialists, pediatricians and ER doctors.

We will be taking extensive measures to keep COVID-19 out of this program, but before detailing those, we want to make it clear that we are going to run this program as we believe that we can care for participants and staff if they do contract COVID-19.  We believe we are able to successfully manage the risk and should someone become ill, care for them, or get them to definitive medical care on a timely basis should the need arise. The CDC has stated that children with confirmed COVID-19 have generally presented with mild, cold-like symptoms [link] and that for program-age children, roughly 1 in every 100,000 confirmed positive Covid-19 cases is serious enough to require hospitalization [link].

We believe that every family should consult their own physician to have input on this decision. We will ask every family that does participate in this program to have a physician sign off on their child’s participation.

MEDICAL PROTOCOLS

If a participant or leader does show symptoms of COVID-19, they will quickly be isolated and tested at a separate facility on the property of the sanctuary.

The care we provide to symptomatic participants will be similar to the supportive care you would give at home including liquids, fever reduction, and rest.  If multiple participants are confirmed positive, they will be able to be isolated together. Further, the symptomatic participant will be monitored closely by one of our staff leaders (all of whom have a Wilderness First Responder certification, at a minimum).

If a COVID-19 test comes back as positive, you or another parent will be required to come to Southwest Michigan at your own expense and relocate your child, quarantining with them elsewhere before returning to your home.  We cannot accept your child on this program unless you or another parent is available for such an outcome. 

If a COVID-19 test comes back as negative, the participant will be able to rejoin the group once we assess they are healthy enough to do so.

Given the nature of this illness, we will not be able to accept any participants that the CDC considers to be of high risk.  We will ask you to obtain physician approval prior to departure to assert that your child can participate in this program.

PREVENTATIVE MEASURES AND TESTING

For the two weeks prior to the program, we will ask every family to keep their participant fully within their household quarantine. We will ask that other members of the household take all possible social distancing measures. We will also ask for families to take the temperatures of their child for the two weeks prior to the program and monitor for COVID-19 symptoms.

Proof of a negative COVID-19 virus test will be required for participation.  You should be able to obtain a test through your healthcare provider or other testing sites.  Often these tests are covered by insurance; the cost of a test is not included in tuition.  If you are having trouble accessing a test, we can work with you to ship one to you (and will be invoiced separately for this).

TRAVEL

While we are proud of the geographic diversity of our participants, it poses additional logistical challenges in getting everyone to the program. There is inherent risk with communicable disease when traveling. As such, families will be required to drop-off their child at the private accommodations on the first day of the program and pick them up from the same location on the final day. We will have further details about travel in the near future, but we will encourage every family to choose the method of transportation that feels safest to them.

Many occasions this summer will call for participants and staff to wear masks to cover their faces, and we will require that all participants and staff wear a mask during travel to and from the program. We also expect participants, their families and our leaders to take all possible precautions to limit contact with the public and exposure when making their travel arrangements. This includes packing food instead of purchasing along the way, traveling with hand sanitizer and a change of clothes, and washing hands frequently.

General Travel Info

It is imperative that no one make any travel arrangements until RLT provides instructions for specific arrival and departure time windows. Those details will be released 2-3 weeks before the program begins. 

Families are individually responsible for booking their own travel to get their student from home to the starting destination on the first day of the trip, and from the ending destination back home on the last day of the trip.