Assateague Coastal Trust
ACT To Protect Our Coastal Bays
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Who We Are

Coast Kids is a family based environmental education program of the Assateague Coastal Trust. Our mission is to expose children to nature in a fun and safe way, and to spark their interest for Delmarva’s local fauna, flora and geography. Building bird housesWe believe that nature can be explored with all senses, and that hands-on learning experiences build a deeper understanding of our environment.

Coast Kids & The No Child Left Inside Coaltion

Coast Kids has joined over 250 other organizations nationwide in support of the No Child Left Inside Coalition, organized by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. The primary goal of NCLI is to build support for the No Child Left Inside Act, sponsored by Maryland U.S. Representative John Sarbanes to create federal funding and environmental curricula for schools. Such funding is a wise investment given that:

  • Our environment is besieged by unprecedented impacts such as habitat loss, pollution, and global warming.
  • Our children are spending an unprecedented amount of time indoors (both at school and at home), increasingly separated from nature.
  • Data show that children who spend more time outdoors are more likely to excel in school and less likely to suffer from obesity, diabetes, depression, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, and other setbacks.
  • Kids who spend more time outdoors are more likely to be good stewards of the environment. Spending more time outdoors is a win-win situation for our kids, our environment, and our future. For more information contact the NCLI Coalition website.




Meet Our Coast Kids Program Director


Verena Chase, Program DirectorVerena Chase is our Coast Kids Program Director and has worked for ACT since 2004. She coordinates monthly events, creates publications which feature local fauna, flora, and geography for children, and manages the Coast Kids membership program.

Verena holds an MS in Environmental Protection from FH Bingen, Germany.

Contact Verena by e-mail or phone at the ACT offices.

Coast Kids Founder/Volunteer

Kim QuillinKim Quillin teaches biology at Salisbury University and is a coauthor of a college biology textbook, Biological Science, published by Pearson.

After receiving her B.A. in Biology from Oberlin College and her Ph.D. in Integrative Biology from the University of California, Berkeley, Dr. Quillin returned to her family homestead on Sinepuxent Bay.

She joined the Board at ACT in 1999 and founded the Coast Kids program in 2002, serving as Director until 2009. Kim remains an active volunteer and can be found at most of the monthly events with her daughters.