Spring School Program Reservations

Please make a note in your calendars! The window for making reservations for spring school programs will be January 25th through January 30th, 2012.

Cindy Winsemius Outdoor Education Fund

The Gillette Nature Association is proud to announce the establishment of a memorial fund in memory of longtime park employee Cindy Winsemius of Muskegon. Cindy was greatly loved by the park staff and so many of our park visitors. She will be remembered for her caring and nurturing character, loyal friendship, big smile, infectious laughter and especially her love of nature. We are immensely saddened by her passing and wish to honor her legacy by providing bus grants to school districts who have a desire for their students to experience Lake Michigan and the sand dunes.

Cindy Winsemius worked at the Gillette Visitor Center and P.J. Hoffmaster State Park from the 1990s to the present. She was passionate about the park and the outdoor education programs we provide. Coming from a background of teaching, she especially enjoyed working with school children and was a driving force behind our annual Earth Day recognition in April called “No Student Left Inside Day.” We would have never been able to host 180 middle school students on that day each year without Cindy’s unfailing support. She set up the rotations, recruited volunteers and taught the Lake Michigan unit. Her enthusiasm kept us all going when the task seemed beyond our limited means.

The Gillette Nature Association is now accepting donations to this special memorial fund. It is our hope that through this fund we will continue to support educational programming that Cindy was so passionate about and to include bus grants to schools in need starting in the spring of 2012.

Snowshoe Hikes Available to School Groups

The Visitor Center is offering snowshoe experiences for school groups in December, January and February. This fun, educational program is called Animals in Winter and focuses on animal adaptations. It includes an interactive discussion with animal mounts that reviews the strategies that animals use to prepare for and survive the winter months. The program concludes with a snowshoe hike through the snowy, wooded sand dunes near the Visitor Center. This program takes about 2 ½ hours.

We are taking reservations for single classrooms with 30 students or less. Due to our limited number of youth snowshoes, we cannot take reservations for larger groups. Reservations may be made by calling the Visitor Center at 231-798-3573. Give your students an experience they will remember forever…book your class trip today!