Support Us!

Your financial support is greatly appreciated. Through our mission to cultivate a holistic understanding of what it means to live in a mutually thriving relationship with the larger life family within the limits and regenerative powers of place, our work currently focuses on protecting wildlands and ecological lifelines; transitioning to relational foodways via growing a bioregional forest pantry; and supporting the development of the regional materialshed for a sustainable and regenerative circular economy. Your donation enables this work to continue and expand. (Read on for other ways to participate and support!)

Please consider supporting our work through Paypal for smaller or one-time donations. For larger or recurring donations or collaborative inquiries, please contact Keetu Winter at winterk@wellspringcommons.org.

Your financial support helps fund:

A living wage for our staff
Leadership and administration
Programming (see Our Work page for more details)
Collaborations with communities, organizations, and endeavors
Research

Key questions we are exploring:

What are the assumptions at work regarding what is considered food and the foodshed?
Where are the processing bottlenecks around the availability of bioregional foods?
How does eating from place help us listen to place? (“The more your body is made of place the more in tune you are and know what place is asking of you.” - Kyra Kristof)
What are some ways to support a system of real food from place?
What is needed to bring the idea of bioregional food to the wider public?
Given we are all dependent on the wellbeing of our ecosystems, are the key ecological lifelines adequately protected? Where do proper protections need to be put in place?
As we anticipate disruptions to the global supply chains due to climate change and look to sustenance from our own region, where are the places that that would actually sustain us for more than one to two years, where the soils aren't already depleted or polluted, the trees are healthy, and where the ecosystem can bear the strain?
Since current policies focus more on mitigation of pollution and harm rather than prevention at source, how do we better tend to the health of the ecosystems?
How do we prioritize protecting ecosystem health and biodiversity while also building our bioregional food and resource system?

Our current system uses toxic processes to make products often designed to be used once and then discarded, causing more toxic waste—what would an alternative, regenerative and circular economy look like?
What does wellbeing mean, and needs met?
What initiatives are underway, and what are the priorities for next steps towards building a regional materials system in the Northeast that doesn’t cause harm but allows for the flourishing of all life?
What are the obstacles to be overcome, including lack of infrastructure and capacity to realize that potential, policy hurdles and bottlenecks in processing?

We also welcome your participation and collaboration in other ways:

As Ethan Roland and Gregory Landua articulate in their 2011 permaculture article, 8 Forms of Capital—social, material, financial, living, intellectual, experiential, spiritual, and cultural—it takes many hands, many relationships, and many resources to do the work and keep energy moving through all its cycles. All are needed, and invited. Do you have big questions related to this work that you’d like to explore with likeminded people? Are you looking for collaborative exploration into best stewardship practices for land you own or care for? Would you like to volunteer your time or specific relevant expertise? Do you have a sustainably-run venue in the Northeast suitable for small to mid-size gatherings where we could host conferences and events? We would love to hear from you regarding points of possible synergy, connection, and exchange.

We invite our Northeast bioregional and global communities to build relationships of trust together so we can move resources where they need to go and collectively develop resilience.