The first Permaculture Design Course (PDC) in the US was taught by Bill Mollison back in the early 1980s; there are still a few students from that course around our region! Many iterations and formats for the PDC have evolved from there.
The Resilience Hub offered its first PDC in 2008 with Lisa Fernandes supporting Charles and Julie Yelton as the lead facilitators and teachers. Since then, we have organized and offered between one and three PDCs each year continuously until the present day.
Over 20 completed PDCs and improving with every one…
For the most part, our focus has been on a “Weekend Format,” to spread out the 13 total teaching days, allow for deeper learning and self-study in between weekends, create access to the course for people who cannot take two weeks away from their lives and to ensure that the facilitators are fresh and energized for each course weekend!
In 2012 we began offering the PDC at MOFGA’s Common Ground Education Center in Unity, Maine and Jesse Watson of Midcoast Permaculture joined the core facilitation team.
In 2015 we began teaching the PDC in Boston (Lisa’s hometown and the same driving time from Portland as MOFGA) to serve that audience since no PDCs had occurred there in many years. For three years, we co-sponsored the Boston PDC with the Boston Food Forest Coalition and others in order to grow the network and capacity of the permaculture community in New England’s biggest city.
In 2018, Kate Wallace joined the facilitation team. We’ve expanded our community to include a host of guest presenters, each bringing a unique perspective and skillset to the PDC. As of this writing, The Resilience Hub is scheduling it’s 21st Permaculture Design Course — sign up here!