Young people experience nature: horses and rabbits instead of screens!

Young people experience nature: horses and rabbits instead of screens!

The Ebersberger Sägemühle, a branch of the Fellbach youth center, has enjoyed great popularity among children and young people since it was founded in 1979. It is located in Oberrot in the Limpurger Land and offers a unique, natural world of experience far away from social media and digital noise. According to the Stuttgarter Nachrichten, which reports on the sawmill, the site continues to be used for active youth work even after almost five decades.

One of the key factors for the sawmill's continued appeal is the special educational concept that focuses on sustainability, responsibility and self-efficacy. Corinna Wolfgarten, who has taken over management since October 21, 2024, runs the facility with a team of three full-time employees and up to three volunteers as part of the ecological or federal voluntary service.

Activities and offers

The sawmill is not only a place for leisure activities, but also a meeting place for intercultural exchange. People from different nations, cultures and generations come together here to spend time together in nature. Offers range from cooking and gardening to animal feeding and stable cleaning. The sawmill's animal residents include two Haflinger horses, a Shetland pony, a mule, five chickens, two roosters, six guinea pigs, four rabbits and two cats, which are actively involved in the educational work and promote the children's motivation, motor skills and self-confidence.

The facility also functions as an extracurricular learning location for school classes and offers extensive use options for self-catering groups, including club and family leisure activities. Overnight accommodation for up to 38 people makes the sawmill a regulatory and seminar house for various events, such as further training or volunteer projects.

Sustainability and future outlook

Interestingly, the Ebersberg sawmill recovered quickly after the challenges of the corona pandemic and even achieved a surplus in 2022 and 2023. Despite the expiry of its use for youth work in 2029, there are already plans to further develop the facility in the 2030s in order to test new animal educational approaches and strengthen its integration into the Oberrot community.

Applications for a federal voluntary service from September 2025 are already possible, which shows that the sawmill wants to remain a place of learning, experiencing and helping to shape things. As the official Ebersberger Sägemühle website highlights, it is not only a place for leisure activities, but also a space where valuable experiences with nature and animals can be gained.

Overall, the Ebersberg sawmill shows how important it is to promote contact with nature and how important such facilities are for the development of young people - in the spirit of exercise, teamwork and sustainability.