WILD COMMUNITIES FOUNDATION
Wild Communities Foundation is a U.S. 501(c)(3) non-profit organization created to provide young people with intentional opportunities to reconnect with non-humans, disconnect from screens, and develop a lifelong stewardship ethic and commitment to contributing to healthy communities.
our story
Wild Kids was started by a class of 6th graders at Le Jardin Academy in Kailua, Oʻahu, in 2008. They convinced their teacher, Christina Hoe, to take them to explore the forest of Ulumawao, adjacent to campus. Together, they designed a learning culture built on imagination, adventure, compassion, freedom and love of the land.
That summer, those same Wild Kids convinced Christina to start bringing them to her family home in Montana, where they began spending summers on the Blackfeet Reservation and in the backcountry exploring the vast prairies and mountain ranges. From those trips, our Montana programs were born.
As Wild Kids has grown in the years since, we have continued to intentionally design programs that provide young people opportunities to form transformational, lifelong relationships with both the humans and non-humans around them, through place-based learning in our communities in Hawaiʻi and Montana.
our mission
We truly believe "it takes a village," but we worry that there aren't many villages left. So we set out to build a village of individuals bound in our commitment to caring for one another and for the planet.
Our mission is to cultivate an empowered, multi-generational community of wayfinders who will co-create an environmentally and socially sustainable future.
We believe that by rewilding ourselves and our communities, we restore sacred ancestral relationships between human and non-human relatives, and we forge authentic pathways to explore, grow and live with meaning and intention.
We aim to impart a lifelong conservation and stewardship ethic, a community-minded value system, a deep respect and reverence for the natural world, and a profound appreciation for the importance of preserving wilderness areas on this planet… because open space, dark nights, quiet moments and healthy communities are necessary to our survival as human beings.
support our 2026 scholarship fund
Every year, our annual student-run fundraiser makes it possible for students of all backgrounds to participate in Wild Kids programs. Last year, we were able to provide scholarships to 14 students thanks to the support of our community.
Our goal this year is to raise $24,000 dollars in scholarships for our Summer 2026 programs, helping to ensure that Wild Kids remains accessible to all students.
By purchasing a ticket or donating, you help us achieve that goal, and give a young person the gift of time in the wilderness, and the opportunity to grow in community.
Head to the 2026 Fundraiser page for more details about the event, including directions, schedule, activities, and more!
wild kids programs
“We are what we imagine. Our very existence consists in our imagination of ourselves. Our best destiny is to imagine, at least, completely, who and what, and that we are. The greatest tragedy that can befall us is to go unimagined.”
-N. Scott Momaday
