Join us on December 6 at Root Wild Kombuchery from 6:30 – 9:00 pm to celebrate another year of permaculture design courses, workshops, and permablitzes!

Highlights include a photo booth and silent action with some great stuff from our friends and neighbors around the state. Proceeds from the silent auction will benefit another year of Resilience Hub programs. We’ll release a list of auction items before the event, so stay tuned.

Winter Celebration and Silent Auction

Friday, Dec 6, 2019, 6:30 PM

Root Wild Kombucha
135 Washington Ave Portland, ME

13 Permies Attending

Join the Resilience Hub at Root Wild Kombuchery to celebrate another year of permaculture design courses, workshops, and permablitzes. Highlights include a photo booth and silent action with some great stuff from our friends and neighbors around the state. Proceeds from the silent auction will benefit another year of Resilience Hub programs. We’ll …

Check out this Meetup →

We’ll have music and activities as well as small bites to snack on – if you’d like to bring something to share, please do! Root Wild kombucha and beer will be available to purchase. Kids are welcome!

Join in the fun — stop in for a few minutes or stay the whole time. We will be telling stories from the past year and sharing the goals we have set for the year to come. We hope to see you there!

It’s hard to think spring when the snow hasn’t even started to fly, but it’s that time of year again! We’re excited to bring back the Resilience Hub’s Fedco Tree group order. Their website has been up and taking orders for a couple of weeks now.

Why participate this time around? Get a discount, order great stuff, have your plants delivered to Portland (you won’t have to drive 90 minutes north and back to get your order!), and support the work of permaculture education here in Maine.

Here are the details:

1. For all inquiries regarding orders, email kate@resiliencehub.org.
2. You can use the paper Fedco Trees catalog if you have one or the online catalog to put together your wish list. Order early, as popular items tend to sell out.
3. Log into Fedco Trees using your email address and follow the directions given here. When you review your order prior to checking out, click the “Part of a Group” button as your shipping option. Then go to “Checkout Securely” and type in our group order number: 49808.
4. You will not pay on the Fedco site, but you will click here to send your total amount to The Resilience Hub. We collect the money and make one big payment to Fedco in order to qualify for the discount.
5. You need to place your order with Fedco and make your payment to us by the ORDER DEADLINE OF JANUARY 17, 2020.
6. PIckup up your order in Portland at the end of April. Depending on how much of a discount we receive, we will process a refund* back to you via PayPal.

We will be organizing 2 or 3 members with trucks to drive up and get all our stuff on Friday May 1. Your order will be available for pickup in Portland on the afternoon of May 1 and over the course of the following Saturday and Sunday (May 2 and 3). More details about the specific location and time for pickup will be shared closer to the date.

We will also be available to help out with any order problems or shortages after the fact.  

Here’s to more perennial food in the landscape!

* Depending on the size of our order, Fedco will issue a discount of between 10% and 20%. Then sales tax will be added back in, we will put a bit of money toward fuel for the volunteers who drive to Fedco and bring the order back down to Portland, and a bit of money toward a stipend for the order coordinator. You will likely get at least 10% back, support the Hub and contribute to a reduced number of vehicles driving up and back for pickup!

The Resilience Hub and Midcoast Permaculture Design graduated its 20th cohort this summer from the internationally recognized Permaculture Design Course. Participants met five times over four months at the MOFGA fairgrounds in Unity. In that time we visited multiple permaculture sites, and learned hands-on techniques like plant propagation, sheet mulching, scything, and water-harvesting earthworks. We did a deep dive into the permaculture design process, which culminated in a three-day, start-to-finish, small-group design of our sample client’s 5-acre site in Morrill. It was an exciting weekend, stressful at times, but each group finished the project with multiple beautiful hand-drawn maps and a written report. Congratulations to the 2019 Unity PDC grads!

Dates for the 2020 PDC will be announced very soon! To learn more, check out maine-pdc.com.

The Resilience Hub is one of six organizations chosen from over 110 nominees to win the 2019 Source Sustainability Award from the Portland Press Herald.  We sent out a call for nominations and you all responded. We are so honored and grateful to have the support of YOU, our wonderful community!

The Resilience Hub is profiled in the Sunday April 21 edition of the Press Herald. A formal awards ceremony will be held on May 1 at Pineland Farms in New Gloucester from 5:30-7:30. Please join us to celebrate our accomplishments of the past 14 years!

By Malene Welch, Resilience Hub PDC Grad

When I received an email announcing a Permaculture Design Course, I first put it aside. The email was from a PDC participant who had recently completed the course and with whom I was in a gardening class. I was fascinated by his breadth of knowledge and as I had been coming across the term ‘permaculture’ more and more, I was very curious. I found both the definition of permaculture and the description of the design course intriguing so I returned to the email and signed up for the course.

What I could not have known then was that a neither a written definition nor a description could have prepared me for the life-changing experience the PDC would provide. What I thought would be an immersive gardening course was so much more than I could have ever imagined. Throughout the course I found myself surrounded by a diverse group of people connected by a shared desire to learn and guided by some of the most dedicated and experienced instructors that I have ever encountered. The format of the course allowed us to get to know each other through sharing our histories, our various levels of expertise, and even our food! I always looked forward to the delicious dishes that showed up at every class.

I originally took the course to improve my gardening skills and the following season my garden was abundant due to concepts I implemented from the PDC. While I learned a great deal about design principles, what affected me most deeply was how my eyes were opened to the world around me. I continue to use the principles of permaculture in my everyday life from how I physically move to how I communicate with others. The concept of ‘social permaculture’ now informs the way I navigate in life.

I will be forever grateful that I chose to take the Permaculture Design Course because of the knowledge that I gained, the personal connections that I made, and the change to my outlook on life.

The 2019 Permaculture Design Course starts May 18 — sign up today!