Aprovecho's Matching Grant Campaign

Hello! We are Aprovecho, a non-profit organization dedicated to the mission of "Living, Learning, Organizing, and Educating to Inspire a Sustainable Culture." We are nestled on forty acres in the Willamette Valley in Cottage Grove, OR. "Aprovecho" in Spanish means "I make the best use of," and represents our mission to focus on solution-oriented goals given each unique situation. We offer courses mainly in natural building, permaculture, appropriate technology, but also delve into never-ending list of topics: beekeeping, herbalism, water systems, animal husbandry, mushroom cultivation, and more! We strive to make our courses the most affordable, as no one should be limited in receiving and utilizing this knowledge.

The campus itself is a dynamic and beautiful place filled with examples of practical applications of sustainable living techniques. Our sustainable forestry practices provide 90% of the wood in our buildings, and provides wood for heat and cooking uses while maintaining a healthy and diverse standing forest. The gardens and orchards provide much of the fresh food eaten by the residents and program participants. The buildings themselves provide examples of natural and energy-efficient building techniques, including passive solar design, alternative insulation and finishing materials like strawbale, light straw clay, and earthen plasters, living roofs, and much more, The campus also features several water-harvesting features, including ponds, swales, and a 10,000 gallon ferrocement rainwater tank. Aprovecho is also pioneering a successful temperate climate aquaponics system, which currently produces tilapia and a diversity of edible fruits and vegetables year-round.

We are so excited to announce our matching grant campaign! A generous donor has agreed to match every dollar donated up to $10,000!! The deadline is March 1st, 2016, so we only have a few months to meet our goal. The money raised will go towards furthering our mission and providing more for our students and programs, as well as improving our facilities.

Whether it's $1 or $100, we hope that if you believe in this mission you will support us--that can also be through sharing and spreading the word! Anything will help, and if nothing else, a growing awareness that alternatives exist will be enough (but really, we'd love the money too)!

Please check out our website to find out more about who we are and what we do: www.aprovecho.net and our facebook page for updates https://www.facebook.com/Aprovecho

Thank you so much for believing in and supporting our mission!