GIVING TUESDAY is December 2nd! Please consider donating to School Around Us!
As 2025 draws to a close, we invite you to help us expand our circle of learning and community! Your gift to School Around Us sustains holistic, innovative education for children in Southern Maine — an approach rooted in creativity, connection, and a proud tradition that began in 1970.
We believe that all children should have the opportunity to learn the way that fits best for their style. Not all educational environments will work for everyone. Communities like School Around Us are essential to meet the need for hands-on, Holistic education - rooted in child-led experiences where relationships and respect are vital to the learning process.
How your gift makes a difference at SAU:
Support for our Theater Intensive – fund our new partnership with Ferry Beach.
Grow our Scholarship Fund – help make SAU accessible to all children.
Enrich our learning – enable partnerships with local educators and hands-on opportunities.
Give the gift of learning today! Your donation will go directly to covering costs for those learners who need it the most. You can make a one-time donation or perhaps you’d consider a monthly amount? All donations are made securely through PayPal. Just click the link below!
Thank you!
“Our learner has grown because of each experience at SAU. All the triumphs and struggles have supported him towards more and more growth. We’ve seen growth in his independence, citizenship, accountability, and emotional regulation! .” - SAU parent 2025
We believe that children thrive when they are surrounded by nurturing relationships and supported to encounter their world and to discover their own unique place in it.
Your donation to the School Around Us Co-Learning Community will help us to expand our calendar of workshops, classes and special events so that we can serve twice as many students and families in Southern Maine next year.
Will you support our vision today?
Here’s what your donation will support
Our learning Pavilion was built with the help of our parent community in 2021
Four Season Classrooms
Thanks to the global pandemic, SAU has been inspired to embrace our values of education that is immersed in the surrounding environment, and we share much in common with the “forest school” movement. Our 2021 fundraising goals include the construction of four-season shelters for multiple outdoor classrooms. While COVID may have been an inspiration, our desire to create integrated outdoor learning spaces is a long term commitment.
Junk2Funk Music Intensive with Trashcan Productions 2023
Workshops for the Community
Our educational vision at SAU is about creating dynamic experiences for learners of all ages—our students, their families, and the wider community. We are not a school, we are a learning ecosystem! Expanding our daytime, afternoon, evening and weekend programs is a goal for the future!
Times Square in Manhattan NYC 2023
Multi-generational Adventures
At SAU our small size has always enabled us to create uncommon adventures for our students and their families. Whether it was hut-to-hut skiing, visiting DC during the election, or canoeing the Allagash, we have created indelible foundations for our self-directed and confident young learners.
Fund a learner t-shirt - the latest version of the classic SAU tee!
Buy a t-shirt for your favorite SAU Alum and the profits go directly to the SAU Opportunity Fund, a scholarship fund for learners. Shirts come in adult & youth sizes and in a variety of awesome colors!
54 years of Pioneering Leadership in Education
When you support SAU, you support a 55-year strong legacy of educational leadership in Southern Maine. Watch this video to see how we commemorated our 40th birthday with a look back at SAU’s roots.