April 1, 2012

Participate in International Homesteading Education Month

We've teamed up with Grit magazine to declare September 2012 the month to celebrate modern homesteaders. Share your skills and experiences, and learn new ones, by hosting a homesteading event or attending one held by a neighbor. We've created special Web pages to allow people to post their events online into a searchable calendar, so you can publicize your own event and look for one near you. We hope the cheesemakers, green thumbs and solar energy gurus will all share with one another and continue the movement to build more self-reliant communities.

The Internet allows us to connect around the world, but it also can help us discover like-minded homesteaders living only a few blocks or miles away from us. With that goal in mind, MOTHER EARTH NEWS and our sister magazine, GRIT, invite you to participate this September as we host International Homesteading Education Month. We can learn a lot from books and magazines, but as the MOTHER EARTH NEWS FAIRS have shown us, there is simply no substitute for the kind of excitement that firsthand, face-to-face interactions can generate.

If you have skills or experiences to share about how to maintain a homestead, please schedule an event this September and post it here so that others in your community may attend. Together, MOTHER EARTH NEWS and GRIT reach over 5 million readers and throughout the summer we will encourage everyone to visit these Homesteading Education pages to find events near them. These pages allow anyone to search the event listings by state or province, so interested neighbors will be able to find your event. You also can choose to register as a potential speaker with our new Speaker Finder.

There are so many ways to connect those who have knowledge to share with those who want to learn: simple open houses, workshops, demonstrations, or even local weekend Homesteading Education fairs. We know that many of you have DIY projects you are proud of; seeds or livestock or skills to share; even books or small businesses to promote.

Others are eager to connect with local experts and learn how to grow and preserve food, keep bees, raise chickens, make artisan cheeses and breads, or acquire dozens of other homesteading skills.

If you are one of them, use our links below to get started, and help us celebrate International Homesteading Education Month, September 2012.