I've always been in love with plants.

  When I was a kid, whether I was supposed to be walking to the car or playing outfielder, I was distracted by plants. In childhood, I learned a handful of edible wild plants, and as an adult, they continued to call to me. In the past ten years I've slowly tried my hand at more things: Blending herbs to make tea for our children, making salves for bug bites and balms for dry skin, making tinctures, and infusing honey. I discovered weeds that filled an exact need in our life- plants have brought us magic, beauty, and healing in so many unexpected ways.

    I'm grateful for all I've gained in my extensive personal study of herbalism, and now I'm ready to formalize my training. I want to bring the care I've received from herbal medicines to others, from a sustainable, ethical, and trustworthy foundation of knowledge. 

The Support I Need

  An extensive herbalism course- which includes teachings such as how to personalize care and run an herbal business- has come across my path, and I'm almost ready for it. The 100-Hour Herbalism Program at Ecoversity is entirely online, which means I will be learning from home, in a way that's immediately accessible to me. This training program has an experienced, diverse group of instructors, including Rosemary Gladstar, a respected elder in the field. 

  Here's the financial details:

• I have applied for and received a scholarship covering half the cost of tuition.
• I am seeking $1450 in fundraising to complete the cost of my tuition.
• All funds raised here will go exclusively towards my herbal education.
• Any funds raised above my goal will go towards purchasing herbs and other supplies.

The Support I Can Offer You

I am so grateful for your help; I want to excel in herbalism for the sake of community care, and I cannot gain this credibility and education without receiving that community care myself. To thank you for giving, I am eagerly offering some herbal and plant-inspired items that I am already proficient in creating.

• Gently Healing Herbal Salves
• Citrus and Lavender Room Sprays
• Art Prints of Original Collages
• Rose-Lime Bath Salts
• Flower Essences: Completely safe for all ages and health conditions, this energetic support of plants and flowers took me by surprise, and quickly became something I've been eager to share with others!

Plant Medicine Matters; So Does Proficiency

  While I respect the craft of herbalism and plant medicine as the ancient, proven, and traditional form of care that it is, I also appreciate the scientific understanding that we've built over time about our bodies, plant properties, and how they interact. It's important to me to navigate herbalism from an informed perspective, giving due weight to things such as changing environmental factors and medication interactions in the way I share plant care with others. This is a big part of the reason I am seeking formalized learning: To strengthen the breadth and depth of my knowledge, and fill in any gaps in my practice by sitting with the teachings of those who know more than me. 

  I am so excited to pursue this opportunity, bringing with me the strengths of inexhaustible curiosity, willingness to learn where I am wrong, an endless desire to learn, devotion to the earth, deep respect for the plants, and foundational belief that all people deserve care and wholeness.

Other Ways You Can Help

If financial support isn't accessible right now, I get that! Please consider sharing my goal with others- anyone who loves plants and curated health products, the hippie in your friend group, the aunt who thinks millennials should go back to school- anyone and everyone is invited here. I'm just grateful for the opportunity to say my piece as I pursue this thing that I love and believe in, so thank you! 

• Share the link to this page on social media, such as Facebook, Instagram, etc.
• Text the person you thought of when you were reading through all this!
• Deflect from a question you don't want to answer by talking about my goal instead!