Grow, Create Community, and Make a Difference
 

Earth Mountain Education Farm is a 400-acre environmental education center nestled within the canyons of the Sangre De Cristo range and the beautiful Huajatolla Mountains. Earth Mountain is a 501c-3 non-profit organization offering hands-on educational opportunities for adults and children. Joni Steiner, Education Director, and Carter Morris, Operations Manager, are the partnership behind the organization's efforts. A visit to Earth Mountain's base camp is an education in low- impact sustainable living, with solar generated electricity, a solar hot water heating system, passive solar natural building construction and homegrown organic food.    Classes and workshops include but are not limited to wild medicinal/edible plant identification, tipi and native drum making, mountaineering, primitive skills, native craft, sustainable living concepts, organic gardening and natural building. Earth Mountain also offers exciting day programs and 3-day youth camps to individuals, local schools and organizations. Schedule early to bring your students for a field trip or camp. Guided tours are available; call ahead and schedule a visit. Check the website for the 2008 summer camp and activity schedules.

   In 2004, Earth Mountain Education Farm collaborated with the City of Trinidad and volunteers from the community to organize the town's first organic Community Garden. This community outreach project enabled Earth Mountain to introduce a sustainable concept to the city, create community, and inspire youth to learn about nutrition and growing food while providing healthy, locally grown organic produce to the citizens of Trinidad. The Garden hosts community work days, picnics and an annual Earth Day celebration. Each season beginning in March, 15'x15' plots are available. Look for meeting announcements or contact them if interested in space to garden, or if you have an empty piece of land and would like to start your own neighborhood garden. It's a great way to have a low maintenance productive garden with lots of friends and support.

   Earth Mountain offers internships through the WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) program. Interested in a unique work-trade experience? Help with great projects and the daily chores of living a natural existence in exchange for room and board. Interns get a chance to develop their skills, become a part of a working sustainable farm, and maybe most important, time to contemplate life and their productive part in it. For helping build, develop, and sustain the farm, interns are accommodated with tipi lodging, group prepared meals, and a rich community experience.

Joni Steiner, Justice Boyd and Carter Morris

Earth Mountain Education Farm's sustainable community development project for 2008 is the creation of a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) cooperative. This concept of small local farms diversifying their crop production and offering shares of a mixed bag of organic produce to members for an upfront fee is a great answer to local food independence and small farm survival. It also gives people a chance to become directly involved in growing the food they eat, encouraging optimal health and nutrition. The Learning Farms CSA Cooperative will offer non-working and working memberships. Working members will be responsible for volunteering four hours a week and in return will benefit from a discounted membership rate. Full shares, half shares and single shares of produce will be available depending on family size. A variety of summer farm activities and programs will be offered such as, Fridays on the Farm, a hands-on farm program for youth, and guided tours. Community service hours are also available through any of Earth Mountain's projects, the Environmental Education Center, The Community Garden or The Learning Farms CSA Cooperative.