MEET OUR Regenerators

Building regenerative communities

The ECP works with committed, visionary, diverse, and community-loving individuals to form a team of Regenerators. Together, we will work to demonstrate new ways to build just, healthy, and sovereign communities of joyful abundance.

The Regenerative Communities (RC) project trains new farmers and places them on land in Hudson Valley communities to establish public food gardens as a launching pad to regenerate communities through increased food security and sovereignty, increased economic security and wealth through community-owned renewable energy, the promotion of land and nature access, and growing civic power.

Training of Regenerators happens on Longhaul Farm during the summer season. Together we learn farming skills, self-sufficiency skills, community engagement skills, and share our various interests and passions with each other. Meanwhile, the ECP works to secure land in urban spaces in the Hudson Valley that are underutilized and where we see potential for regenerating community. To date, we’ve put down roots in the Peekskill Regeneration Farm at Lepore Park in Peekskill, at The Sanctuary Healing Farm & Gardens at Crystal Lake in Newburgh (in partnership with Scenic Hudson) and at the Pershing Avenue Neighborhood Farm in Poughkeepsie (in partnership with Poughkeepsie Farm Project and Scenic Hudson). Our apprentices graduate from their first summer of farming with access to land to steward and a community to nourish. They are doing the long, dedicated, heartfelt work of regeneration of the soil, our ecology and community bonds.



skills we learn + share

 
Regenerative farming skills like soil health, intensive growing practices, garden maintenance, harvesting, and animal husbandry.

Regenerative farming skills like soil health, intensive growing practices, garden maintenance, harvesting, and animal husbandry.

 

 
While I still have a learning curve to master, the time spent
in the apprenticeship gave me a solid foundation in soil health, plant health, and aligning my actions with my values.
— Jen Hull, 2020 Regenerator
 
Sustainable life skills like cooking, preserving, carpentry, grant writing and budgeting.

Sustainable life skills like cooking, preserving, carpentry, grant writing and budgeting.

 

What some of our regenerators had to say about their experiences:

This experience has brought me into being the woman I’ve been hiding from the world...an awareness of the Oneness awakened and more importantly activated to share in community through reciprocity.
— Katie Collins, 2020 Regenerator

read more about the apprenticeship

Más información sobre el aprendizaje

 
Community leadership skills like social problem mapping, community organizing, and local municipal structures.

Community leadership skills like social problem mapping, community organizing, and local municipal structures.

 

 
The apprenticeship allowed me to reimagine work, in a way that invites integrity, accountability and a sense of purpose in the work I do everyday.
— Emily Langer, 2020 Regenerator