Four Winds Community is dedicated to helping each individual in our community realize his or her full potential. When you visit Four Winds, you will experience a real sense of wonder and beauty all around. One is almost tempted to call it our setting idyllic.

What goes on here is neither idyllic nor a step back into some mythical gentler past. Since 1993, Four Winds Community has been earnestly engaged in the work of Curative Education, Youth Guidance and Social Therapy - Anthroposophical "healing education".

"The healing social life is only found when in the mirror of each human soul the whole community finds its reflection and when in the community the virtue of each one is living." ~ Rudolf Steiner

The insights of Anthroposophical "healing education" first described by Rudolf Steiner were developed into the first Camphill children’s village in Aberdeen, Scotland, by Dr. Karl König, an Austrian pediatrician, in 1939. The primary principle of Anthroposophical "healing education" is that each human being possesses a healthy, whole, and intact spirit, which can be nurtured and educated, regardless of handicaps or disabilities.

Four Winds Community follows the Anthroposophical "healing education" philosophy and teachings of Rudolf Steiner, the educator and humanitarian who founded the Waldorf School Movement and inspired the formation of a worldwide movement of social and therapeutic communities.

"Where there is no vision, people perish." ~ Proverbs 29:18

All we achieve together, each year, is possible only through those who inspire and unite us: the special-needs residents. Our work at Four Winds is one of the next stages of development after Camphill – the Anthroposophical lifesharing community.

The beauty one experiences here, and the purposeful care with which all things are accomplished, are all essential elements of this healing setting.

The vocational training programs, therapies, home life, and cultural life of the community combine to create an environment in which each individual, developmentally disabled or not, is recognized as a unique spiritual being with freedom, dignity, and a purpose in life.

In keeping with the Steiner philosophy, life at Four Winds Community is built upon the recognition of each persons's spiritual wholeness and an appreciation for each person's ability to contribute.

"Put your creed into your deed." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The focus at Four Winds Community is not on disability – it's on capability.

Everyone at Four Winds has something to contribute. What that something is may at first seem elusive, but with patience and faith, it can be discovered. Through the principles of lifesharing and the fundamental belief that every member of the community has something of value to share, the potential, purpose and real humanity of each individual is allowed to unfold.