Thank You Audubon Center for saving us all from Nature Deficit Disorder

One summer day I was picking up my daughter from nature camp at the Audubon Center.  There I found her covered in dirt from head to toe with a snake wrapped around her neck.  I could have fainted just at the sight of this large reptile but then I noticed a big huge smile across my daughter's face.  I couldn’t help but smile then, too.  For I knew she was home.  She had found her connection to nature, all thanks to the Audubon Center at Debs Park. 

I’m a parent who has sent her children to nature camp, a Girl Scout leader who has led dozens of scouts on hikes to Peanut Lake, and a writing camp instructor who has used the Audubon Center as a place for children to riff on clouds and write nature haikus from the "fort" above the Woodlands.  For as many years as I have lived in Northeast Los Angeles the Audubon Center has provided my family with this connection to nature, giving us space to grow, create, and invent.