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The Experience: Using a beautiful, beachside village in Costa Rica as a base, students participate in a variety of activities including Spanish language learning, community service, environmental studies, and recreation. Putney Foundations staff, who are experienced with this age group, stress the development of a positive group dynamic, insure that students receive personal attention, facilitate inteactions with local people, and encourage students to explore and to make discoveries about their new and fascinating surroundings, all in the context of structured, safe, and fun activities.
About Costa Rica: Over 50 years ago, declaring itself to be a peaceful nation, Costa Rica disbanded its army and has since enjoyed five decades of democracy and peace. Today, Costa Rica is well known for its astounding array of biodiversity, its innovative approaches to ecotourism, its warm, inviting people, and its miles of tropical beaches. With over fifteen years of experience in Costa Rica, Putney’s extensive network of local contacts and talented staff bring safety, creativity, and expertise to all aspects of Putney Foundations.
The Villa: Putney Foundations is based in a small coastal community, situated on Costa Rica’s northern Pacific Coast. Known for its friendly people, a pristine white sand beach, gentle surf, and surrounding verdant mountains, this is one of the country’s most inviting and safe beach towns. Foundations’ students and staff live together in a small, family run villa situated only 50 meters from the beach. Boys and girls live in separate double or triple accommodations at the villa. Students and staff eat all meals on campus in an open air, palm-roofed pavillion.
Daily Activities: Students begin each morning with a breakfast of cereals, yogurt, and locally grown fresh fruit. Before splitting into smaller groups, they convene for a brief morning meeting – where the day’s activities are discussed, and preparations made for any upcoming excursions. Morning activities allow participants to choose from among a constantly rotating variety of options such as taking beginner surfing lessons or a Tico cooking class, helping to run an art camp for local youth, or competing in a Photo Safari. On many days, there are interactive language lessons, led by Putney staff and designed not only to improve Spanish skills, but also for students to get to know Costa Rican culture and society. On these days students are grouped by ability levels; while the Advanced Spanish group may interview Costa Ricans about their favorite musical groups, the Beginning Spanish group may be on the beach to learn the names of different types of fish from a local fisherman, and the Survival Spanish group may practice their food ordering skills at the town market. The whole group reconvenes for lunch at the Villa.
The afternoon is again spent in small groups pursuing enrichment activities, chosen by the students and led by Putney Foundations instructors. Over the course of their three weeks in the village, students may take nature hikes to learn first hand about local ecosystems, participate in a creative writing or painting workshops, learn to play a local song on the guitar, take salsa lessons, or become an expert in the marine biology of the region.
Late Afternoons and Evenings: After enrichment activities end, Foundations’ staff lead an array of structured activities ranging from a pick up game of fútbol (soccer) with local teenagers on the town’s grassy soccer field to a tertulia for students wishing to sharpen their Spanish skills. There are opportunities for surf lessons, boat rides to snorkeling spots, swimming, visits to nearby artisans and shops, sunning and reading books on the beach, and more. After dinner and a second community meeting, there is time for students to show off their talents at a program-wide coffeehouse, tell stories around a bonfire on the beach, or collect their thoughts by journaling as they relax beside the pool at the Villa.
Community Service—Life in a rural village: Every Putney Foundations student also completes a five-day Community Service unit. For this section of the program, students are broken into smaller groups of about 10 students and each group rotates through the same village. This rotation begins after the first week on campus, when the first of the groups travels to a small, rural village tucked into the mountains of Guanacaste’s Nicoya peninsula. Accompanied by two experienced Putney staff, students lend a hand on much-needed projects in town. Examples of possible service projects include helping to build a classroom at the local schoolhouse, teaching English to Tico children, painting a room in a community center, planting trees, and working with local farmers. During this stay, boys and girls live in separate, simple accommodations (classrooms or small houses in town.) The group eats meals together; each day, students form cooking crews to help local women prepare delicious meals of rice, beans, chicken, eggs, and fresh fruit and vegetables. Students who successfully complete Foundations receive a certificate from Putney recognizing between 10 and 20 hours of community service work completed.
Weekends: Day and overnight trips from our villa may take students to the renowned olive ridley turtle nesting site in Ostional, a biological research station at Palo Verde National Park known for its spectacular birding, and nearby beaches such as Carillo and Pelada. Students can hike misty trails in search of quetzals, howler monkeys, hummingbirds, and morpho butterflies, interview a sea turtle biologist about his role in a sea turtle protection program, kayak from the mouth of the Rio Nosara into the Nosara Biological Reserve or relax in the sun with newfound friends. Putney Foundations offers participants the unique chance to become part of the Putney community by living, learning, and actively engaging in fascinating and beautiful Costa Rica.
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Language Learning program, and the meaningful
interaction that comes from participating in a worthwhile Community
Service effort. Putney Foundations is designed for creative,
energetic, and engaged students finishing the 7th and 8th grades who
want to transition from a traditional camp setting. With this
program as a foundation, students can move on to other Putney
experiences in future years.