Ecological Restoration

The Power of Fresh Air: A Summer of Stewardship

April 15, 2026 Arthur's Point Farm

Campers and design students work together planting native plants at Camp Tommy. Photo by Jack Hyland, The Fresh Air Fund.

Working on the land with intention teaches us the value of resilience and care. This past summer, our team at Arthur's Point Farm had the opportunity to witness this dynamic at work at Camp Tommy, one of five summer camps operated by The Fresh Air Fund at Sharpe Reservation in Dutchess County, NY. Campers from New York City worked with University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design graduate students in architecture, environmental, and landscape design to create a central place to gather. Together the campers and design students implemented plans to build an outdoor chill space at camp with wooden seating areas and install native plants, transforming a simple clearing bisected by a stream into a welcoming and visually pleasing community space. Named “the Yard” by the young people who created it, this space will serve visitors for years to come as a place to come together surrounded by nature.

This project reminds us that when we engage young people in stewardship and creativity, we can cultivate a sense of belonging, responsibility, and possibility. At Arthur’s Point, we aim to help create a more abundant world for future generations. The ethos behind the work of The Fresh Air Fund aligns seamlessly with this mission. Supplying native plants for the project at Camp Tommy deepened our connection to the broader Hudson Valley region and strengthened our understanding of how our plants impact our community.

This work at Sharpe Reservation connects the broader ecosystem of the Highlands region to the personal ecosystems of the campers themselves, and even to their communities at home. Tending the land and caring for a place can become a way of caring for the communities who live and work there. As one camper put it, we “grow through what we go through.”

“Identity Boxes” clad the structural poles of The Yard’s new shading element, made by youth who worked on the project at Camp Tommy in 2025. Photo by Tatum Phillips, PennPraxis.

The Project

To understand the significance of this project, it’s important to consider the mission and reach of The Fresh Air Fund. For more than 145 years, the organization has provided “transformative outdoor experiences, at no cost, to New York City children from underserved communities.” Over 1.8 million children have participated in Fresh Air’s free programming throughout its history, with 1,750 youth attending their summer camps in 2025 alone.

A Leader-in-Training prepares native grasses for planting. Photo by Jack Hyland, The Fresh Air Fund.

One core focus of The Fresh Air Fund is offering “opportunities to participate in the enhancement of natural resources” for youth who attend their camps. Campers’ hands-on engagement with nature lays the foundation for possible futures in environmental research, green design, and land stewardship. The decision to include a native plant project reflects a commitment to resilience while conveying an understanding of how strong roots can help us meet challenges with strength and adaptability.

At the heart of the Camp Tommy project is a collaboration between The Fresh Air Fund and a graduate landscape design program. PennPraxis is the applied research and design arm of Penn’s Weitzman School of Design and gives graduate design students the opportunity to apply classroom lessons to real world settings. The partnership began in 2020 as design career exploration programs and broadened in 2022 when the Design to Thrive summer program evolved into hands-on design/builds at Sharpe Reservation. Over the last few years, the summer camp program expanded its carpentry focus to include a broader curriculum in environmental education. In 2025, Leaders-in-Training and Counselors-in-Training worked with five PennPraxis Design Fellows to execute outdoor furniture and landscape design plans developed with Fresh Air Fund staff and industry experts at Weitzman.

Leaders-in-Training plant a diversity of native perennial wildflowers and grasses. Photo by Jack Hyland, The Fresh Air Fund.

Many of the campers found this project to be a transformative experience that helped to foster a sense of connection. One camper noted that “gardening is my favorite activity at camp because it’s very nice being out in the sun and creating things.” Jeremiah, 15, enthused, “during gardening, I love digging! When I dig, I try to imagine what the finished product would look like, and it’s turning out amazing.” Amber, 16, said, “being in nature without any cellphones is something I really appreciate. It’s such a different environment where I get to disconnect and be present.”

Leaders-in-Training plant native perennials with design students. Photo by Jack Hyland, The Fresh Air Fund.

The design students echoed this sense of transformation. Sarah Gyurina, one of the landscape architecture graduate students, said, “this is my first time really gardening or building a project. A lot of times in school we design things more conceptually, but we don’t actually get to see them built. So, this is really cool that we’re on the ground, using our hands, getting familiar with the plants. I also really enjoy the teaching components as well and working with the youth.”

The Place

Sharpe Reservation lies within a designated Significant Biodiversity Area in the Hudson Highlands, a largely unfragmented and relatively undeveloped corridor of forest, grasslands, and wetlands that spans four states. It provides habitat to a wide variety of species, including birds, amphibians, reptiles, and rare plants. According to a report from the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, although the Highlands make up only 13.5% of the state’s land area, it provides habitat for “nearly 85% of New York State’s bird, mammal, reptile, and amphibian species.” The region’s ecological vitality is deeply intertwined with the health of the Hudson Valley Estuary.

View of the Hudson River and Highlands.

These natural areas have direct implications for urban environments. Plants play a critical role in mitigating climate impacts by sequestering carbon, filtering water, cooling surrounding areas and producing oxygen. The environmental well-being of the New York metropolitan area depends upon the continued health of the Highlands and the Hudson River Estuary. (For more background on the power of forests to slow climate change, read our blog.)

The planting project accomplished at Camp Tommy contributes directly to this ecological network. The flowers, trees, and shrubs planted by campers and design students will provide forage, nesting habitat, and shelter for local wildlife. As perennial species return each year, their seeds will disperse, strengthening plant communities beyond the immediate site. Over time, cleaner water, reduced erosion, and healthier soils will ripple outward, benefiting both local ecosystems and nearby cities.

Native perennials and grasses planted along a stream at Camp Tommy. Photo by Tatum Phillips, PennPraxis.

Beyond ecological value, Sharpe Reservation holds significance in the lives of the young people who attend Fresh Air camps. Lily, 16, said, “The workshops aren’t just teaching us how to be counselors; they are teaching us how to be adults!” PennPraxis’s mentoring program “has a major impact on participants’ advocacy, collaboration and critical thinking skills, their interest in school, and their desire to take care of the environment.”

This year’s project created a physical space that reflected the hard work they did individually and together: learning new leadership skills and becoming more comfortable expressing themselves. They built a space where campers could gather, socialize, and connect with nature – a space that will continue to evolve with each generation of visitors.

In addition to the planting, the students designed and painted colorful bricks to adorn the pole supporting a new shade sail. Beneath the sail, wooden benches of various sizes and shapes create a welcoming gathering area. The young people literally made their mark with this creative imprint that future campers will experience and build upon.

In this way, caring for the land becomes an act of solidarity with all of our neighbors, human and animal, next door or miles away. Stewardship teaches us that our actions ripple outward, and how many small contributions can create meaningful, lasting change.

Before (above) and after (below) images of the project at Camp Tommy. Photos by Hanzhong Luo, PennPraxis.

The Plants

After a few virtual meetings to review the site conditions and appropriate species, PennPraxis placed their order and we loaded the van and headed to Sharpe Reservation. The planting plan for this project was guided by a core principle of ecological gardening: right plant, right place. This approach matches species to existing environmental conditions, rather than attempting to alter the site to fit the will of the planners.

Plants from Arthur’s Point Farm delivered to Camp Tommy. Photo by Ainsley Rhodes, PennPraxis.

There are many considerations when planning a planting project, regardless of scale. Soil texture and drainage, sun exposure, slope, and hardiness zone all influence which plants will establish successfully. Starting with these questions helps to narrow options for species selection. Focusing on plants native to the region further increases likelihood of success, as these species have evolved alongside local soils, climate patterns, and wildlife communities.

At Camp Tommy, the planting area encompassed multiple habitat conditions. Portions of the site run directly along a stream with actively eroding banks. In these areas, we selected native shrubs such as elderberry, silky dogwood, and arrowwood viburnum. These species develop dense root systems that help stabilize soil, slow runoff, and reduce sediment. Over time they also can create shaded, cooler conditions along the stream edge, which benefit aquatic organisms and improves overall stream health. Flowers and berries provide food for pollinators, birds, and small mammals, reinforcing the stream corridor as an important living system and edge habitat.

Shrubs planted along a stream at Camp Tommy. Photo by Tatum Phillips, PennPraxis.

Beyond the streambank, the planting area transitions into a meadow environment. Here, the design incorporated nearly twenty species of native perennial wildflowers and grasses selected for their ability to naturalize with minimal maintenance. Many of these species are adapted to disturbance, a major reason native meadows play such an important role in ecological restoration.

Species like blue flag iris, cardinal flower, great blue lobelia, and boneset were planted in lower areas where soils remain moist and occasionally flood. These plants are well suited to fluctuating water levels; some are actually considered marginal aquatic plants. Upslope, where soils are better drained, species associated with open meadows were installed including big bluestem, little bluestem, black-eyed Susan, spotted bee balm, and New England aster. Together, these plants create a gradient of habitat that reflects natural conditions found throughout the Highlands.

Boneset, New England aster, and spotted bee balm (top to bottom), species planted at Camp Tommy.

All of the species planted at Camp Tommy are native to northeastern North America, and most are native to Dutchess County. This level of specificity reflects a deeper interpretation of “right plant, right place,” one that considers not only whether a plant will survive but how it contributes to an existing plant community. Native plants support a wide variety of pollinators, some of which are dependent on their plant hosts as their only food source. In turn, these insects provide essential food for birds, amphibians, and other wildlife.

Native perennial wildflowers and grasses form the foundation of a complex web of relationships. They attract pollinators, host larval insects, provide nesting material and cover for birds, and contribute organic material to the soil as they grow and decay. They form a continuous cover and mitigate erosion. As the plant communities mature, they become more self-sustaining, better able to withstand environmental stress, and more supportive of the species that depend on them.

The community enjoying a transformed Yard at Camp Tommy. Photo by Dyan Castro, PennPraxis.

In this way, the planting at Camp Tommy mirrors the broader themes of the project itself. Individuals establish roots, grow alongside others, and collectively create a resilient community that is stronger than any individual. The landscape becomes a shared resource shaped by cooperation, patience, and care. Just as the campers and design students worked together to build the Yard, the plants will continue to support one another and the larger ecological community for years to come.

Stewardship and Interdependence

Arthur’s Point Farm was thrilled to contribute to the Camp Tommy project and to see a shared interest in creating a space that is not only beneficial to a waterway and productive for wildlife, but a positive place for young people to gather, effect change, and make lasting memories. The campers and counselors worked together to design an environment where they want to spend time, one that future generations will inherit and continue to steward.

The hundreds of native perennials, trees, and shrubs the campers planted represent an investment whose full return they may never see. Nevertheless, those benefits will long be felt in the camp, the surrounding Highlands, and the interconnected communities that rely on the region’s ecological health.

There’s something to be said about a plant that can be cut back to the ground each winter and return stronger in the spring. Its resilience offers a lesson for all of us: with the right conditions, strong roots, and care, we can withstand challenges and continue to grow.

Right plant, right place.