Mindfulness of Schedules

In this episode, Kristina and Heather dive into the art of managing our daily schedules while keeping life balanced and fulfilling. Drawing from their own experiences of juggling grad school, parenting, and all the chaos in between, they chat about the importance of creating space (aka margins) to avoid burnout. They share how hectic schedules can take a toll on sleep, relationships, and overall well-being, and offer tips on how to bring more mindfulness and intention into our routines.

They also discuss the crucial benefits of getting outdoors, connecting with nature, and building meaningful family rituals—no grand gestures needed! By the end, Kristina and Heather remind us that a balanced life, with time for both rest and play, isn’t just essential for our own health, but also for modeling healthy habits for our kids and strengthening family bonds.

This conversation is all about practical advice and a refreshing take on finding harmony in a busy world!

Gear Up! Adventures In Parenthood is recorded and edited by Dave Purnell and produced by Jen Plante Johnson for the ODC Network in Holland, Michigan.

The ODC Network is a non-profit organization that strives to advance outdoor education and conservation in West Michigan. 

Since 2000, The ODC Network has served over a million people through hands-on, outdoor learning experiences and conserved thousands of acres of native habitat through restoration and preservation projects.

The ODC Network’s vision is building a better community by connecting people, land and nature. To learn more and get involved go to: www.odcnetwork.org.

Transcript

Kristina  00:00

Hey everyone. Today, Heather and I are talking about something we know all too well: how to keep our schedule from completely taking over our lives.

Heather  00:09

We've all been there - balancing family commitments, activities, work and everything else. Today, we're sharing some of our favorite, simple strategies that really help us find balance and connection, 

Kristina  00:22

And it's not just about checking off tasks. We're talking mindfulness, intentionality and why getting outside and soaking up some nature is a total game changer when life feels overwhelming.

Heather  00:33

It's all about finding that sweet spot of balance so we can model healthy habits for our kids and keep our family time strong. 

Kristina  00:40

So get ready for some practical tips and a little humor as we talk about how to make space for rest, play and real connection in our busy lives.

Heather  00:52

Welcome to Gear Up! Adventures In Parenthood.

Kristina  00:55

A podcast where we explore the struggles and challenges we all face as parents. We'll share ideas and offer tips and strategies for raising happy, healthy children. My name's Kristina Boersma.

Heather  01:09

And I'm Heather Bouwman. Kristina and I are clinical social workers who've been working with families and children for a good long minute. We're support service directors for the Early Childhood Network of ODC Network in Holland, Michigan. And we get to support parents and children as they navigate the tricky terrain of raising children and growing up in today's world. 

Kristina  01:31

We're here to help unpack the hard stuff and connect with the joy of parenting. Are you ready?

Heather and Kristina  01:37

Let's hit the trails!

Heather  01:44

This project is made possible by the ODC Network, an amazing nonprofit organization based in Holland, Michigan where we get to work supporting preschool age students, their teachers and their parents.

Kristina  01:56

The ODC Network is all about nurturing the community and the next generation through a wide variety of innovative nature-based initiatives. 

Heather  02:04

Please visit www.ODCNetwork.org to learn more about the ODC Network's mission and impact. So today, we're really going to talk about what we want to commit to outside of our homes, and what are we going to commit to inside of our home? How are we going to live? What is our daily rhythm going to be? Who is in control of our schedule?

Kristina  02:29

Yeah, should be us.

Heather  02:33

And what do we want to be mindful of as a family? How full do we want our schedule to be? How busy do we want to be? How much time do we want to just have together as a unit? Yeah, so Kristina, talk to us about why this topic is so important.

Kristina  02:51

Oh, well, you know, we just talked about sleep not that long ago, and that, you know, most of us adults are running around sleep deprived. And why is that? I think this has a lot to do with it. Absolutely. We're busy, and we can't be our best selves when we are not getting enough sleep and when we don't have the margins in our life to make those meaningful connections with our children, with our partners, if we have partners, with our village. That's really important for our quality of life, the quality of our relationships, and there's just no time. How many times do you say to somebody, “Oh, I haven't seen you in months, but we should get together.” And then the next time you see them, “Oh, it's been months. We should get together.” And you're not just saying that because you feel like you need to say it.

Heather  03:42

No, it's not disingenuous or insincere. 

Kristina  03:46

No, you really want to see this person, but the schedule of your life doesn't allow it.

Heather  03:49

And so often, I think it's so true, we don't realize until we're there, yes, because our culture, it's just like, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. And I think there is a brain chemistry component to that, dopamine, dopamine, adrenaline, adrenaline, faster, faster, faster, faster. Oh, that just makes me stressed out just sitting here doing that, yes, and then I will find like, why am I? Why? Why am I doing this?

Kristina  04:18

And then I get crabby because there's too much.

Heather  04:21

Yep. And my husband will be the voice of reason oftentimes, and be like, “You're making your own problems. Like, what are you doing?” 

Kristina  04:28

Yeah. I just made myself crazy by saying “yes” to too many things. Yep. I love that you used the word a little bit ago, of “mindfulness.” And I think intentionality, and mindfulness about what we will allow into our lives…

Heather  04:46

Kind of goes back to our foundation.

Kristina  04:50

It does, and it's easy to lose sight of that. It is midst of-

Heather  04:55

Well, because as we raise a family, change is always coming. And so if we're not intentional about going back to those foundations and every new season of life and growth and endeavor, we can get off track real fast, big time. So let's talk about how we're going to do this. How are we going to be mindful? How are we going to hem our schedule? How are we going to keep it reasonable for all of our sanity? 

Kristina  05:27

Yeah. So I don't know if it's because of when I was born or not, but I love a good consciousness raising and recognizing and acknowledging that we have a cult of busyness, and when we buy into it that's crazymaking, and literally the intentionality and the mindfulness and the consciousness raising is: I don't have to, even though that's what my society and my culture is calling for me to do. I don't have to. And being aware of it and then owning your own power to say, “Nope. Not playing. Not gonna play that game. That's not the life we're gonna live.” Yes, and I'm not going to, even if I was raised within the sickness. So I have the sickness within me. I will not model that and pass that on to my children.

Heather  06:25

Yes. And I think I have a tendency to be a go, go, go, go person. I'm pretty competitive, and I like to achieve. And my dear husband, nature boy extreme, won't play. He will not play. And it's so good for me to have him be that rock, to be like, “Absolutely not.” And he's just definitive. And I'm like, “Okay.” And he's like, “This is my Alamo.” Like, this is the hill. Like, no, we're not playing. And that has been so good. 

Kristina  07:03

Oh, and we each need to have somebody with that voice in our village.

Heather  07:07

Yes. Because it's the it's the voice of reason. Certainty. Yeah, it's even more than reason. It's the voice of certainty. And it's just the voice of extreme security. 

Kristina  07:21

Yeah. So I think for me, because I resist anybody attempting to control me. I think somebody just raising the question of, “Hmm, is that something you want to make space for in your life?” Because if I say “yes” to that, I have to say “no” to something that's already on the plate, because the plate is as full as the plate can get. And that doesn't mean every square inch of that plate is covered. It means that, in my world, none of my food touches. So there's enough space on my plate to allow for the margins in life. And what's also included on my plate is the commitment and time and space for my family.

Heather  08:03

Yeah, because life is too short to just always feel exasperated.

Kristina  08:08

Yes, and exhausted. 

Heather  08:11

So we like to say, in our preschool world, early childhood has a slow pace, right? We just-it's impossible to go quickly with these little people, whether it's a transition from outside to inside, because maybe there's pelting rain and it's sideways hitting them in the face and they're wet, and they need right their outdoor gear to be changed…like you just don't rush that. You have to know what you're getting yourself into. You have to meet that pace, and there's no point in rushing it, because it's just going to be frustration on all fronts, right, right? And we talk about the pace of nature and how, for our early childhood, kids, in particular, their natural pace matches the pace of nature. And it's just slower. And that has made a huge impact in my life with my work, because I'm a “go, go, go,” and I could really get into a task list and checking things off. And there's such beauty in observing the pace that the young child has.

Kristina  09:22

Well nd I think just yet, as I'm hearing you talk about that, Heather, I'm aware of how much agitation comes along with trying to move children faster than they can move, “hurry, hurry, hurry,” not letting them do something on their own.

Heather  09:37

And how frustrating it is. Like they can't, right? They can't go faster than their skills and abilities. 

Kristina  09:44

Well, unless you just do it for them, because it's taking too long, right? 

Heather  09:47

And then they're just frustrated because, developmentally, they want to do things, right? They want to lead. They want to have initiative, right? But the way you've scheduled your life doesn't allow.

Kristina  09:55

Doesn't allow. I love the rhythms of nature that are so important for us to be attuned to. And when we get out of tune, you know, we're not attuned to that -

Heather  10:07

It's even like the seasons, right? Like we take the kids through seasons. And we're on a 160 acre nature preserve, so to really be able to fully observe all of those seasons…Right now, we're really in winter. And it's just slower and quieter and darker. So they learn, like how the animals prepare for winter. They learn how there's more sleep. They learn about heart rates. They learn about how you store food, all of those things. And really winter for us as adults is meant for some of those very same things. It's meant for drawing closer, being in more, being in rest more. Not that we're not going to be active and outside. That's still very powerful and helpful for mental health and sleep, but it's different. It's different in the season of winter than it is in summer. You think about summer on a lakeshore tourist town, right? Where we live, right? And the pace of that versus right now. We're just sleepier. Like everything is just sleepier and slower. And it feels really good. And that's the pace of nature.

Kristina  11:24

It's a really tender family time.

Heather  11:29

And I think as we come out of all of that sunshine and kind of that hurried, long-day summer, and we move into fall, which we had a gorgeous, warm, hard, really funny fall for a really long time, everybody's just kind of ready to put their sweater on and to have the first snowfall. Yes, all of it, right? It's just different and it brings us closer. 

Kristina  11:58

So you shared a quote recently something that you had read. Remind me what. That was so good. 

Heather  12:05

Yes, it said that we should sit in nature. We should make it our mission to sit in nature at least twenty minutes a day, unless we're busy. And if we're busy, we should try to sit in nature for an hour. It's powerful. 

Kristina  12:23

It's like mic drop. I love when you said, you know, twenty minutes. Sit with nature for twenty minutes. Unless you're busy, “I don't have time for that,” like, “Ah, then do it for an hour.” You need it even more.

Heather  12:41

So it's what we're gonna prioritize. Yep. How hurried are we going to be? How hurried are we going to make our children? 

Kristina  12:51

Yeah, and like you had said earlier, Heather, there are just so many opportunities, so many like we did motor movement with our children, kinder music, kinder music, yep. Do we want to start them in a sport, right? What about an art class? Oh, art is so good. And then what about being in a little choir? What about going to the library-

Heather  13:11

And really play, play, play. Kids need two things, attachment, connection to primary caregivers, and play,

Kristina  13:20

And then as they develop their skills as an only, or, you know, as my child was as an only, doing some of those things so that she could have this engagement with peers and begin learning some of those skills was important, but not too many. And boy, it was hard because I loved the darling art class, and I loved kinder music and I loved-

Heather  13:47

And you can get to all of them. We just don't need to have them all at once, right? We're gonna pick and choose. It's like when my husband says, “This is my Alamo. We're not doing this.” And I think to me, that was like I was able to go: permission given. Sometimes we just need the permission not to participate.

Kristina  14:07

Amen. And not to feel guilty that we didn't-

Heather  14:12

No and then once you walk away from it, you can kind of Ppuff out your chest, and it feels a little empowering, like “we just did that.” We just walked away from that. Everybody else is doing it, but we just turned our backs and walked away.

Kristina  14:23

Yeah. So Grace is not a sporty kid. And there were times that my husband and I grieved that because of the, I mean, so many good things come from participating in team sports.

Heather  14:33

Especially when you're an only 

Kristina  14:37

That's not who Grace is. And I look at some of my friends who have- their children are not just involved in a sport, but in all sports. Like they do every single sport, both rec and school and so their life really is practices and games. 

Heather  15:00

Travel now, yeah, right? There's so many things, right? 

Kristina  15:03

So it's games. It's practices. It's travel, homework. Guess what? There's no time for just being and just having dinner and just being. There's not a big agenda. There's not an agenda at all. We're just here together in the same time and space, talking to each other, learning from each other, no time.

Heather  15:27

And it's not to say that if you're participating in some of this, it's a bad thing. No, it's just being mindful of, “How are we going to manage? How are we going to remain committed to our foundations?” This is my daughter, who we went away last year on a family vacation. She competes at a decently high level. She is an equestrian, and she trains a lot. And it requires a tremendous amount of work. And she has to have skin in the game. It's an exceptionally expensive sport, so she has to work to earn some of this for her training. And she got away from it for a bit. She got out of that routine for like, a ten day stretch. And even as a fourteen year old, was like, “What am I doing? What am I doing?” And came back and sat we got home on a Saturday night and sat down with us, and was like, just dropped the bomb. I'm gonna be done with this. I'm not gonna do the show circuit this summer. I'm gonna-I mean, she was working with a trainer and all that. And was just like, “I'm done.” And it was a 180 and so, for a minute, we had to really wrap our heads around that. But I think even kids can get into it and not even feel it until they can step away from it for a bit, they're living in the same culture, right?

Kristina  16:52

Thank you for saying that, Heather. Because I didn't mean to imply that doing some of those things isn't really wonderful. And parents will come to me and say, “But they want to do all of those things.” And I get that too. I personally think it's part of our job as a parent balance, to teach our children that it can be an awesome opportunity, and we can still say “no” to it, because these other things are our family values. It's what we know is important to have balance in our lives, so that and we can't get too tied into it.

Heather  17:30

That was the thing for my husband and I. When Ava came to us with this thing, right? You've made an investment, pretty significant investment. She's put a lot of time, a lot of training and 180 on us, and that was hard, sure. Harder for some of us than others. There was a part of it that I was jumping up and down and very happy, but it was harder for my husband to really kind of wrap his head around that and reason being because we can get our own emotions sometimes tied up in our kids stuff. And so it had to be the reminder of “this is hers to decide,” and it seems like she's got pretty solid logic behind it. So it's really important for us to be mindful of what we're tying into and living through in our kids, right? 

Kristina  18:25

Yeah. So growing up, not necessarily in my family, but it was very cultural that if you started something, you must finish it. No quitters. Nobody quits. And even if you really want to quit, you do not quit because you made a commitment, and then you're a quitter, right?

Heather  18:41

You're going to be a quitter for the rest of your life, and nobody wants a quitter.

Kristina  18:45

So yeah, “a quitter for the rest of your life.” Oh, my word. So there are still an awful lot of us who feel that way. And so I want to be really careful when I talk about this. There is value in learning to persevere

Heather  19:00

Absolutely. And seeing your commitments through.

Kristina  19:04

Absolutely. Value in that too. I also personally think there's value in learning when to quit, when to walk away. I used to think that you couldn't start reading a book without finishing it. What? What? If I didn't like the book, you can just stop reading it, like, be empowered to return the book to the library. You never have to finish it. You can quit on the book. You can start thinking, “I really want to learn how to be a pastry chef” and learn all these things, and get started and be like, “I actually don't like it so much.”

Heather  19:41

I hate the smell of sugar. 

Kristina  19:45

Or for me, right? I did my undergrad. My major was biology. I was in a pre-med track. I was going to medical school. And that had been my dream since I was a child. That's where I was headed. So I started having an inkling in my undergrad that this maybe wasn't for me. I did some rotations in the hospital and really got in there, much closer to the work that I was thinking I was going to be doing, and thought “I actually am not super comfortable with like blood and mucus and things like that.” I just-and I thought, “Well, I'll get used to it. I'll get used to it. I mean, you don't quit. This is what you're doing. You don't quit.” I saw it all the way through undergrad and graduated with a degree, and this whole trajectory that it's like, “I'm actually going to quit on that.” I sure am, because that's not where I'm being called. That's not where my giftedness is. It's not what I thought it was going to be, right? And I mean, whatever, 20/20, right? You can't go back and redo the things. And I don't want to be a person who lives with regret. However, had I had the courage to quit on pursuing medical school sooner, I would have had a much different experience in my undergraduate being able to really I mean- I fell in love with psychology courses, but I didn't have time to take as many as I'd like to take, because I had to take all that science and math. So perseverance following through on commitments, important things. Also important to, with your child, talk about things and it actually being okay to not follow all the way through.

Heather  21:35

And I think we're all gonna have times in our life where maybe the crowd is doing one thing. And you just need to about face and walk away. And so I always wanted my kids to be able to have the courage to do that.

Kristina  21:47

 So as we're talking about, what do you fill your life with? Children are explorers by nature, and allowing them to explore different things and learn about themselves, and sometimes sticking it out and sometimes saying, “let's look at this and make the wisest decision for you, for our family, with what we know now about whatever that activity is that we engaged in,” that's just good consciousness raising and intentionality and mindfulness. I think as parents too, we can get kind of fooled into believing that it's the really big gestures that are important to our kids, that, you know, we have to take this enormous vacation, and that's what's going to be the thing our kids remember forever. 

Heather  22:42

That's not actually - It's oftentimes the little things, the little rituals, I guess, is what they are that are built in, right? It's the red plate at dinner, and what the red plate meant, it was the what are we reading? And we all brought our book to dinner and talked about what we're reading. Or it's the “Yeah, we were all headed to Disney,” but then so and so threw up on grandma, and that became the star of the show, not the $12,000 trip to Disney. It was just that, you know, Zack threw up on grandma, and then dad, after sea world gave grandma the cape and said, “Here, this is for the ride home. Enjoy.” Like, that's what everybody remembers.

Kristina  23:27

I remember going on a trip as a kid. This is back in the day, when you're like, in order to record a song, you would have to have your little tape recorder and wait for the song to be played on the radio and post my child on time. Okay, so my sisters and I were waiting for the song “I Can't Fight This Feeling” any longer. So we're waiting. We're waiting in the car. We're waiting for it to come on. Mom is driving and it comes on the radio, and we push play and record, and we're- nobody's breathing, nobody's moving, we're recording this on and all of a sudden my mom says, “Whew! I can't fight this feeling any longer, either. I've really got to go. Where's the next rest stop?” 

Heather  24:18

We're gonna hear that while we're roller skating in the basement forever.

Kristina  24:22

I have no idea where we were going. I have no idea what we did when we got there-

Heather  24:27

But mom couldn't fight that feeling anymore.

Kristina  24:30

Never forget that. Nor will my sister. 

Heather  24:33

That's what I'm talking about. You could have gone to the concert. No. Now you just remember your mom couldn't fight that feeling anymore.

Kristina  24:44

That's what it's about. So true, the littler things. Doesn't have to be the-

Heather  24:49

I think about you would come with us to the place where we would go in the summer frequently. Yeah, and do you remember that little I don't know was it the army surplus store? You always stop at where, I don't know, like, we would always get the goggles, because you needed to have seven pairs per kid, because they were, like, $3 and they were gonna break and leak, and you just had that backup. Yeah, and do you remember that hideous little, I don't know it was a little stuffed around thing. 

Kristina  25:16

We called it “Mugley.” I think it was a monkey, but it was super ugly.

Heather  25:21

So we called it Mugley. And we would just hide it, like, just do these stupid things. I was like, “That thing is so ugly, I have to have it.” And so I bought it. It was $1 and I would like hide it in my boys’ underwear drawer. And then they'd find it. And they'd put it in my Vitamix. And then I would find it, and it just was this thing that kept going. It costs hardly any money.

Kristina  25:42

I remember coming into the living room and there's Mugley going around on the ceiling fan.

Heather  25:47

Or like duct taped to the lid of the toilet. Like all the things, right? It just became this huge, like, one- upping thing. And they still talk about it. I still hide that stupid thing.

Kristina  26:00

And you never know when it's gonna show up.

Heather  26:03

And then there it is and the delight that it brings, right? And then it'll show up in my space. And it just keeps going. And so those things cost very little, but they're the important things.

Kristina  26:14

I've said before, and I will say it again: You don't have to make life a carnival for your child. Sometimes, at least for me, and I know I was older when I had Grace, I just had to make things reasonable. Just breathe it in and do what you can do and make it something you can manage. 

Heather  26:35

Because some people have Pinterest boards. Some people have Pinterest fail boards.

Kristina  26:42

And that's okay. So when I think about some of the things that we can make ourselves crazy with in a schedule, those can be some of them we've talked before, about our dear sweet guardians. And you need to be really careful about the things that you do, because you may have just inadvertently started a tradition. Because they want everything to be a tradition every time. All the elaborate anything. They think we're going to do this every single time. And sometimes you walk yourself right into a corner as a parent, because you could do it with one, but oh, two, and then there were three. Now there are four, and you can only put out so many Easter Bunny trails from their door, criss crossing through the home, all the way to their baskets before you're like, “I have created this monster myself.” So being mindful about those types of things are important too.

Heather  27:38

Some of the sweet, little magical things. Vince has always done, Daddy-daughter, day with Grace, which is a sweet time where it's just connection and routine and really time. It is time. Like that whole like, what is it? “How do you spell love to a child? T, I, M E.” It's true.  It's so true. I used to do date nights with each one of my kids. And they were just simple little things where we would go. It was one on one time, which felt so special when you're in the mix of three. And it was in the evening, which also felt special. So we would do those things. And they weren't expensive. And they weren't elaborate. It was just time. I alluded to the red plate. You had told me about this. And I did this in my home. I had never heard of it, but-

Kristina  28:29

I grew up with a red plate. So growing up I think it was my grandma that gave it to us. We were a red plate, a red bowl, and a red cup. And if something special had happened for somebody in the family, as the table was being set for dinner, that red plate would appear at the place that you sat at the dinner table. And sometimes you had no idea what it was there for, but it was a way that my parents could acknowledge and the family could celebrate something good that had happened. Maybe it was a specific kindness. Maybe it was you done well on a project that you had going. Maybe it was because you got a job. It could be lots of different things. But simply having the red plate and the red cup and the red bowl was a celebration. Again, doesn't need to be a carnival. But boy, when you came down and saw that red plate at your spot, or if you were setting the table and mom said, “Put the red plate at John's spot,” you were like, “Oh, what happened? What are we celebrating?”

Heather  29:37

And it's really fun to celebrate those things for character, recognizing things. Generosity. Anything that you want to build. It's just fun to do that for character building stuff. 

Kristina  29:54

It's a lovely little family tradition and very special. And not like the red plate’s out every night. No, it's, it's a special thing that would come around maybe, like, once a month, and it's not on your schedule.

Heather  30:05

No, you just whenever-

Kristina  30:10

And the beautiful thing is, it's noticing, making sure that you're noticing those things within your family. Yeah, and then celebrate. 

Heather  30:18

And then it's fun when the kids pick up on it. And they're like, “Oh, get the red plate.” Yeah, you know. And then it's very fun to do that. You couldn't ask for the red plate. No, that's not what it was about. Oh, no, certainly you could notice it for somebody else, and that's part of the sweetness of it.

Kristina  30:38

So when we think about our schedules, Heather, it really goes back to: what's our foundation? Right? With the things that we allow in our lives, in our schedules, who's it serving? 

Heather  30:55

What are we giving our time to? What are we allowing in?

Kristina  30:59

Is it in line with our values and foundations? And how much stress will participating in this thing bring for all. And keeping that commitment to saying “yes,” being involved in some of those things are really good, ensuring that we have margins around the things and time in our family to just be and to celebrate the little things-

Heather  31:28

And to teach the balance. To teach kids how to balance, because it's a skill they're going to need always.

Kristina  31:37

And if we infect them with that sickness of busyness, then it will be just that much harder for them to step away from it. If we can model stepping away from it that kind of insulates them against that really illness, that sickness of busyness, moving into their lives. So way back in the beginning, you said we need to be mindful.

Heather  32:00

It really comes back to mindfulness, comes back to your priorities, comes back to centering yourself.

Kristina  32:09

And how much more joy-filled is the entire journey when we're able to wrestle our schedules, have things intentionally present and intentional open spaces.

Heather  32:21

I make sure we have enough time to be outside to reap those benefits, to play,  and to get enough sleep.

Kristina  32:31

I love it. 

Heather

Me too.

Kristina

I'm so glad we talked about this. 

Heather

Me too.

Kristina

Thank you so much for joining us for Gear Up! Adventures In Parenthood. I'm Kristina.

Heather

32:45

And I'm Heather. And we're so grateful to join you on your parenting journey. Until next time-

Heather and Kristina  32:50

See you on the trails!

Kristina

The Gear Up! Adventures In Parenthood podcast is brought to you by the ODC Network in Holland, Michigan. It is produced by Jen Plante Johnson, recorded and edited by Dave Purnell, with original theme music by Dave Purnell. 

Heather  33:07

The ODC Network is a non-profit organization that strives to advance outdoor education and conservation in West Michigan.

Kristina  33:15

Since 2000 the ODC Network has served over a million people through hands on outdoor learning experiences and conserved thousands of acres of native habitat through restoration and preservation projects.

Heather  33:27

The ODC Network's vision is building a better community by connecting people, land, and nature. To learn more and get involved go to www.ODCNetwork.org.