International Homesteading Education Month

Celebrate International Homesteading Education Month in September by sharing your skills! Mother Earth News and Grit have ways to participate.

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.

Register an Event

We invite you to plan an event for September 2012, and we’ll help you publicize it. If you’ve learned a homesteading skill, you could offer a workshop or demonstration. Or, if you have a food garden you’re proud of, you could schedule an open house to help local gardeners get acquainted and share tips. Raise prize-winning pigs or heritage chickens? Why not show them off and explain how and why you keep them? If you’ve installed solar or wind power, there are probably lots of folks in your community who’d love a chance to see your system.

Hopefully, International Homesteading Education Month will open the door to a wonderful array of educational DIY and community-building possibilities. It would be great if several of you could join together and organize a full day or weekend of events at a single location to create local or even regional Homesteading Fairs. Some of you may even want to create Facebook pages to promote your local activities.
Register an Event

Event Listings

We have set up an events listing where you can see the International Homesteading Education Month events in your area. If you’re hosting an event, others will be able to search here and find your event.
Event Listings

Speaker Finder

If you are interested in bringing in a speaker for an event, check out our Speaker Finder, searchable by category, location and honorarium fees.
Speaker Finder

Speaker Registration

If you have a skill to share and would like to present for others, register yourself to be a part of our Speaker Finder.
Speaker Registration

Event Hosting Resources

We have a How to Host an Event packet, plus we’ve designed a catchy logo that you can use on flyers and posters, or embed in emails, e-newsletters, blog posts and websites.
Event Hosting Resources
We hope you can join us in a great international celebration about living wisely and living well!

Homesteaders of the Year

We have collected nominations for inspiring, self-sufficient homesteaders who are living wisely in either urban or rural settings. We have received an incredible number of entries, each one a unique profile of one of the many ways to live a satisfyingly simple lifestyle. We've heard from rural, farming families to off-grid, suburban couples to individuals raising chickens and gardens in the inner city. While it will be hard to choose, we'll feature our favorite entries in the 2012 August/September issue of MOTHER EARTH NEWS. You won't want to miss it!