Announcing a month-long course in sustainability and justice activism

This summer, Mending Patriotism is traveling east!

For a month this July, young women will gather from across the country to learn about farming, sustainable design, and art activism.

Mending Patriotism will serve as an experiential art project and case study for justice activism at Spiral, a month-long, residential permaculture course for young women (ages 15-18) in western Massachusetts.

The program aims to empower young women through regenerative agriculture - we'll be farming, cooking, learning design, and building life-long relationships in a community of leaders. Throughout all this, we'll be learning permaculture, a design process that helps people create systems (be they agricultural, social, financial, or other) that nourish the earth, care for people, and bring a more just world into being.

Growing dinner. (photo by Grace Oedel)

Over the course of a month, we will work as a team to quilt, sew, and dye pieces of clothing left behind by migrants attempting to cross the US-Mexico border. Through this work, we will explore the connections between a globalized economy, agriculture, social and environmental justice, migration, and “women’s work”. The project will offer Spiral participants a way to engage with both social justice and art as important elements of a resilient culture.

A quilt made from migrants' clothes.

...and we will have fun! Do you know a young woman who might like to have an amazing summer, learn to bake bread, carve a spoon, swim in a lake, and laugh while working side-by-side with new friends?

Give us a hoot! Spaces are filling up fast. To find out more about the program, visit http://www.diginfarm.com/program/.

All of this will take place at the glorious Dig In Farm, a 10-acre perennial farmstead and forest, located in western Massachusetts. 

Huge challah! I can almost smell it... (photo by Grace Oedel)

Blueberries harvested with a hand rake! (photo by Grace Oedel)