Windy Hill Play in the Wild
We launched Windy Hill Play in the Wild in summer 2025 with our End-of-Summer Celebration. In 2026, we held three additional gatherings that brought our care community together in different environments. Through events, community partnerships, and participation in the work of other Durham nonprofits, Windy Hill Play in the Wild allows our care model to extend beyond our primary childcare setting.
Our goal is to build a strong internal network that reaches outward into Durham’s wider care community. We want the values at the heart of Windy Hill Play—care, connection, play, nature, and shared responsibility—to be experienced through these gatherings. We also use Windy Hill Play in the Wild to connect our families with the work already happening throughout Durham.
Windy Hill Play participated in Karma Keg in both 2025 and 2026. In 2026, we participated alongside 20 local nonprofits, received first place, and were awarded $5,000. Since the event in 2026, we have been connecting with the organizations we met at Karma Keg. We participated in a community block party hosted by Jubilee Home, a Durham nonprofit that provides supportive housing, employment, and wraparound support to help justice-involved people move toward stability and independence. Experiences like this are helping us understand how Windy Hill Play can strengthen the larger network of organizations caring for Durham families.
We are now laying the groundwork for Windy Hill Play in the Wild in 2027 and 2028, with a central focus on connecting our families with organizations already caring for Durham families and advancing our nonprofit mission through shared community work.
If awarded the $10,000 year-end grant, we would use the funds to support eight quarterly Windy Hill Play in the Wild gatherings throughout 2027 and 2028.
Our proposed annual calendar would include a New Year, New Me Celebration in February, a gathering celebrating Parents and Caregivers in May, an End-of-Summer Celebration in August, and a Play in the Dark gathering in early November. In addition to inviting Windy Hill Play families and community partners, we would invite small and home-based childcare programs and their families to join the gatherings. This would allow the gatherings to build relationships not only between individual families, but also among the people and organizations that make up Durham’s wider care network.
Our attendance goals are based on participation in previous events. At Karma Keg 2026, Windy Hill Play brought 58 adults and 32 children to the event, for a total of 90 WHP community members. Our End-of-Summer Celebration brought together 32 adults and 26 children, for a total of 58 people. Building on this experience, our goal is to bring together at least 50 adults and 30 children at each Windy Hill Play in the Wild gathering.
Over eight events, this would create at least 640 participation experiences: 400 adult attendances and 240 child attendances. We would track both total attendance and the number of individual families, childcare organizations, and partners reached.
The grant would support a part-time event coordinator for 10-15 hours per gathering. Across eight gatherings, this would provide 80 to 120 hours of dedicated event coordination. The coordinator would lead outreach to families, childcare organizations, and nonprofit partners; coordinate event logistics; facilitate the gathering; and collect attendance information and participant feedback. The remaining funds would support food, activity supplies, and transportation assistance.
Our goal is to use each gathering to strengthen the relationships and shared-care practices that allow a community to support its children, families, and caregivers.
If awarded the $50,000 year-end grant, we would use $10,000 to support the eight Windy Hill Play in the Wild gatherings described above and dedicate the remaining $40,000 to formalizing and expanding our transitional-care program within Windy Hill Play in the Wild.
The transitional-care program would build upon work that Windy Hill Play is already doing to provide short-term, relationship-centered care for children and families navigating major transitions, including family reunification, the incarceration of a caregiver, domestic violence, and emergency or temporary placement.
Our primary goal would be to create a dependable transitional-care pathway for children and families. To accomplish this, we would establish functional partnerships with city programs and nonprofit organizations already supporting families through periods of transition.
Since opening, we have accepted referrals from Shining Light in the Darkness, which supports survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence, and Families Moving Forward, which helps families experiencing homelessness move toward safe and stable housing. Through these relationships and our existing transitional-care efforts, Windy Hill Play has provided care for 11 children. This care allowed parents and caregivers to attend court, participate in job interviews, navigate sudden moves, arrange new custody agreements, and continue working while waiting for subsidized childcare placements.
We have offered this care without a formal transitional-care program or dedicated funding. Through that experience, we have encountered limitations in meeting individualized family needs, particularly when transportation is required. A family may urgently need care, but the circumstances surrounding a crisis or transition may make transportation to Windy Hill Play difficult or impossible.
During the first year, our goal would be to establish formal referral relationships with at least five city or nonprofit partners, create a clear referral and response process, and increase our capacity to address transportation barriers.
The Durham Police Department has requested an introductory conversation about how Windy Hill Play could support the children and families whom officers encounter during moments of transition or crisis. We offer transitional support to families waitlisted for Durham Pre-K spots and are also active collaborators with Early Years, which works to address needs within Durham’s early-childhood system.
A portion of the award would allow us to bring on a coordinator to cultivate community partnerships, organize planning meetings, develop referral pathways, coordinate memoranda of understanding, oversee transportation assistance, and coordinate individualized care. The remaining funds would support direct-care staffing, transportation assistance, individualized family coordination, continuity of care, program planning, and evaluation.
We would measure the program by tracking the number of formal referral partners, referrals received, children and families served, transportation barriers addressed, immediate family needs supported, and families connected to continuing care or other community resources. When appropriate, we would also invite families and referral partners to share whether they felt supported, whether the assistance allowed the parent or caregiver to complete the task for which care was requested, and whether the family knows that they remain welcome at Windy Hill Play.
For many participating children and families, the program would serve as an introduction to Windy Hill Play and provide a safe, familiar place they could continue returning to for support throughout a period of change. We already have the foundational relationships, experience, and community interest needed to begin formalizing the program. The $50,000 would give us the capacity to turn those relationships into a dependable transitional-care pathway that could develop into a lasting source of support for families throughout life’s many transitions.
Whether awarded $10,000 or $50,000, our goal is to strengthen the network of care surrounding Durham’s children and families. The $10,000 award would support eight community gatherings and deepen our nonprofit partnerships. The $50,000 award would support those same gatherings while allowing us to transform the relationships they cultivate into a more individualized transitional-care pathway. Both investments would help us demonstrate what becomes possible when care is recognized as a fundamental need and embraced as a shared community responsibility.
