Wild Ginger Outdoor Classroom & Herb Growing

10 Year Anniversary Vision Work and Fundraiser

 

In our 10th year here at Wild Ginger, we are dreaming into our next chapter here at Wild Ginger.

 

Transition and adaptation have been huge for us and so many over the last few years. While we are incredibly thankful for the amazing tool and connection that we have been affording through the internet and online education, and we will continue to do that work, we are turning our attention toward safely nurturing the IN PERSON community based programs we have held space for the last 10 Years.

 

As we continue to collectively navigate the global pandemic, we have been planting seeds and laying the foundation for the future here on the farm in Maryland for this season and into the future. While we hope to resume programs in Costa Rica in 2023, in Maryland we are excited to share with you our plans for this season, with some very exciting new announcements as well as a call on community to help bring us forward.

 

Our greatest intention is to shape shift into a future that feels like we can continue to nourish and work in community. We envision all of the community work and knowledge that can be shared here for decades into the future, we would love nothing more than to do that in community with you all! Together we hope to nurture a generative space of inspiration, imagination, sharing knowledge, skill building, and physical manifestation of our affirmation of LIFE! 

 

 

This Season in Maryland:

 

Maryland Programs

This season we are excited to hold our in person Community Herbal Program, Medicine Keepers Apothecary Program, as well as our Herb Camp for Kids as well as Good Earth: Natural Lifeways and Village Building Homeschool Program with Of Earth and Sea.

 

Pick-Your-Own-Herbs

We are expanding our herbal growing this season, and are exciting to become a much needed resource to our community. We are exciting to let you all know we will be opening up the farm for Pick-Your-Own Herbs through out the season on dedicated days so our entire community can come and both harvest herbs to create their own plant medicines. List of dates and seasonal availability of herbs will be announced soon. 

 

Herbs & Preparations for Donation

We are also excited to announce our Seasonal Solidarity Plant Shares will be available again however in a more structured way! We will be offering season long shares that include 5-10 fresh bunches of herbs each share, this will be an offering to our local Trans, Black and Indigenous community members and registration will open very soon, keep an eye out. These shares, as always, will be free-of-charge. Registration for this will be opening very soon. Like last season, we will also be growing herbs and making herbal preparations for donation to the DC Mutual Aid Apothecary who are doing incredible work, please check them out!

 

Volunteer Days 

As we expand our land based offerings we rely on your help, not only financially, but in the gardens as well! We will be announcing volunteer days to help tend, weed, maintain and harvest and make medicines for donation from our gardens! Please keep an eye out!

 

We are excited to move forward as a family and together with all of you to bring this vision forward, and we are also trying to evolve during ever changing times to help make our families livelihood sustainably.

 

We Need Your Help - Crowdfunding Dream Work

 

Three Fold Goals:

 

1 - Outdoor Open-Air Classroom

We are excited to announce our intention & hope to build a beautiful open-air outdoor classroom that will be built by an incredible local members of our community. With the rising cost of materials and equipment as well as the size of the space, they have quoted us at $25,000. In addition to Wild Ginger programs, we truly hope to open up this new space to our community for folks to hold and host their own events and workshops, classes, meetings, special events and healing work, we know this can be a container for many community gatherings!  We want to open this space up also for youth programs as well. Last year in order to keep everyone safe in Maryland - we held our in person programs entirely outdoors under our beloved crab apple tree. Amazingly, this worked the entire season without getting rained out at all! However, we know moving forward we must find an alternative that helps hold our community together and does so as safely as possible. 

Our friends at Earth-Bound Building will be our contractor for our outdoor classroom, they are an incredible locally based, Black & Queer lead building cooperative, please check out their work by clicking here .

About Earth-Bound Building:
Earth-Bound Building is a collective of skilled builders, crafts-people and farmers founded in 2014.  Our Cooperative flowered out of the Black Dirt Farm Collective and the primary observation that functional, durable and ecological farm and land infrastructure lies at the heart of a just and thriving sustainable food system.  Today, we've incorporated the principles of Ecological Building, Craft and Cooperative Economics to our fundamental mission and practice. We specialize in Timber Framing, Natural Building (think straw-bale and clay plaster!), and Agricultural Infrastructure that serves the needs of our farming and rural communities and offers functional and aesthetic value. 
We strongly value people over profit and use the business as a means to achieve long-term goals of land sovereignty and Just Transition as outlined by our close allies at the Climate Justice Alliance (CJA).   Earth-Bound Building is also a member of the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives and the National Black Food and Justice Alliance

 

2 - Tractor

We are now connected with a local farmer who we are paying to help with tractor work, if you have a connection for someone looking to donate a tractor we would always appreciate this connection!

 

3 - Seed & Supply

Much of what we hope to grow will be perennial, however the inputs to get this kind of production started are extensive. While we have saved quite a bit of seed already on our own, we will need to purchase seed, as well as various supplies for growing.

 

We Need Your Help!

 

Our Goal is to raise $30,000!

 

This is a BIG GOAL, we know, and our world is holding so many needs. It has taken us much time and consideration to get to this point of moving forward with this huge ask. No matter what amount we raise we will use these funds towards these goals. We believe in this vision moving forward. No amount is too small, and we know so many of you have been helping to sustain our work for so long. We truly appreciate your help through donations and if you are able to help spread the would often and abundantly during this fundraiser that truly makes all the difference!