Earth Responders ~ Resilience Activism at Work

Earth Responders empowers young adults and others in finding pathways for social justice and ecologically restorative land stewardship, regenerative community, and resilient cultural renewal. With richly experiential earth-centered learning, community service, and support for innovative projects, this project is an emergent and emergency response to the immense challenges now present on the Earth. 

With the continuation of the pandemic mandates, Earth Responders in 2020 will engage in a primary focus on regenerative agriculture, food growing, food security, food sovereignty, and plant medicine in order to engage participants working on-site (in compliance with Department of Health regulations) in truly “essential” business. 

Climate and ecological restoration is intricately interconnected with social restoration and justice. A collaborative approach among organizations is needed to bring these related concerns together and to demonstrate a model that is relevant, courageous, equitable and scalable. 

The intent of Earth Responders is to focus on regenerative living, community, and culture, as well as regenerative earth care. This can be summed up with the Permaculture Ethics: Earth Care, People Care, Fair Share. 

How Your Contribution Will Support Earth Responders ~ Resilience Activism at Work:

In the summer of 2020 (Phase 1) and onward (Phase 2), the following collaborators are working together to create organizational synergy to support the intentions of Earth Responders ~ Resilience Activism at Work. Learning from the implementation of Phase 1, Phase 2 will start to scale the model at different sites with aligned place-based organizations. 

Metta Earth 

Change the World Kids 

Spoonful Herbals 

Permaculture Solutions 

BALE (Building a Local Economy)

Salvation Farms 

Ecovillage at Ithaca /LEARN/THRIVE


Funding is needed for these collaborators to:

~ Provide accommodations for Earth Responders activists, ages 18-35, in a 10-week residency model

~ Steward Regenerative Agriculture/Permaculture: food production & gleaning processes (Connecting Earth Responders with gleaning partners for volunteering on farms with surplus; gleaning supervision/training; surplus technical support; permaculture support, guidance, and supervision) 

~ Steward Plant Medicine: growing, wildcrafting, medicine making & gleaning processes (creating salves, tea blends, & other herbal products using plants harvested from Earth Responders sites; distributing plant medicine to local community members in need)

~ Purchase tools to support Earth Responders’ regenerative agriculture/plant medicine stewarding processes

~ Participate in Cultural Safety Training (BIPOC-facilitated)

~ Support low income demographic youth ages 14-28 in participation with Earth Responders programs 

~ Increase webinar, online presence and technology to support online learning and online community connectivity

~ Engage and support local and bioregional youth leadership though networking and skills development

~ Plan, develop, and prepare for Autumn 2020 (Phase 2) Earth Responders 10 Week Residency Model at Ecovillage at Ithaca, similar to Phase 1 at Metta Earth

~Plan collaboratively for future expansion and rollout of Earth Responder pods in Vermont

~Create activism residency models to be scaled up throughout the country/world

Our intention is to contribute to a growing movement of resilience activism through land stewardship, regenerative community, and cultural renewal. We hope to expand the number of sites for Earth Responder activism. Possible sites to collaborate with would be any places that have quarantine capacity, especially since the current pandemic is creating many levels of uncertainty. This may include places such as camps, boarding schools, and colleges that have commercial kitchens, sleeping accommodations, and meeting spaces. In the future we plan to have much greater outreach for BIPOC communities to have land access on various sites. 

We thank you so much for your contribution. By supporting Earth Responders, you are supporting resilience activism at work. As many of us struggle with the uncertainty of how to make a truly positive impact amidst the immense challenges that our global society is facing today, you can be confident that your contribution will create waves of resilience in our Vermont community and beyond. 

As we deepen our understanding of white privilege/white supremacy culture and educate ourselves via cultural safety training, we have been inspired by many ideas shared by BIPOC community members. Our commitment to expanding our cultural humility and increasing our engagement with BIPOC-led action can be expressed in the following quote by Lilla Watson:

“If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

~Funds from this campaign managed by Metta Earth Institute and distributed to collaborating organizations

To learn more about Earth Responders, visit our webpage here.