We provide safe and supportive learning environments for children and teenagers.We also work outside the classroom to transform the broader conditions that shape young peoples' lives. Kite's Nest is a powerful voice in our community, partnering with youth to address the root causes of trauma and injustice in our city and society. We combine advocacy and youth-led organizing to directly address the systemic challenges facing youth and families, and to build justice and equity from the ground up.
Kite’s Nest is part of a local and global movement of people working to create visionary, people-led solutions to the systemic challenges facing our communities—solutions that benefit everyone. Together with our students, their families, our teachers, and our partner organizations, it is our goal to build long-term collective power: the power to change systems, to shape policies, and to create lasting community transformation.
Below are some of our community projects and initiatives:
River City Garden
The River City Garden is a public community garden at 59 N. Front Street, and a vital community resource for low-income and immigrant families to grow their own food. The garden is also an outdoor classroom for kids and teens, bringing an intergenerational community of neighbors together as partners in the movement for community food security.
ReGen Compost Project
The ReGen: Compost Project is a teen-run composting business located at our River City Garden. Hudson residents are invited to become monthly subscribers.
Youth-Led Organizing & Campaigns
Kite’s Nest supports youth to develop the skills, imagination, and collective power to transform the challenges facing their communities. Teens are participating in state-wide campaigns for housing justice, collaborating with local systems to design new public transport solutions, designing policies to protect trans and gender non-conforming students in their school districts, and organizing public actions to build awareness about climate change, immigrant rights, and other issues.
Starr Seed Healing Project
Named after T Starr, our beloved community member who lost his life to gun violence in 2020, the Starr Seed Healing Project creates spaces for youth to access one-on-one counseling and coaching, process grief and trauma, and cultivate collective care, joy, and power.
Raising Places
Raising Places is a community planning process to engage Hudson residents in creating healthier environments for youth and families. Kite’s Nest and Promise Neighborhood convened a team to generate answer the question: What would make Hudson a place where all kids and families can thrive? Hundreds of community members collaborated to design youth-centered solutions around the issues of discriminatory policing, unemployment, gentrification, housing, public space and transportation.
Listening Project
In 2013, we spent a year collecting one-on-one oral history interviews with people growing up, working with kids, and raising kids in Hudson, listening to a range of experiences of learning and education. It was our goal oto gain greater understanding of peoples’ diverse experiences of and relationship to learning in Hudson, and the strengths and resources of our community.
Systems Change & Advocacy
We work with local agencies to address racial inequality and injustice in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. We support youth-serving agencies to develop more strengths-based, healing-centered, and restorative practices. We are a vocal advocate for community economic development that prioritizes the equity and well-being of youth and families. And we organize trainings in restorative justice and race equity for educators, social service providers, and agency leaders. In our work to shift policies and transform systems, we see young people as vital leaders and partners: together it is our goal to advance the narrative that when we center the voices and experiences of youth and marginalized communities, everyone benefits.