New Community Mushroom Educator Program Offered in 2020

January 10, 2020/Steve Gabriel

Join our new network of educators to learn how to grow and sell mushrooms, and teach these skills in the community you serve.

With support from USDA-SARE and USDA-AFRI, Cornell Cooperative Extension and the Cornell Small Farms Program is partnering with Just Food, Farm School NYC, and Grow NYC to offer a two-year Community Mushroom Educator (CME) Training that aims to build a cohort of 60 educators from urban and rural centers throughout the Northeast.  

Applications are now open and are due by Monday, February 17. Learn more about this effort on our project page.

Through technical training and project-based learning grounded in Popular Education methodology and principles, CMEs will gain valuable knowledge and benefit from the collective experience of the mushroom educator cohort. 

We seek a diverse set of applicants living and growing in both rural and urban locations who are committed to community-based teaching and engaged with their community. During Year 1 (2020), selected applicants will complete an 8-week online training, attend one of three hands-on workshops in New York City, Albany, or Philadelphia, and engage in action-planning after the workshop. 

Trainees will receive a full curriculum, workshop templates, and budget-planning tools for teaching community mushroom classes. In Year 2 (2021), 16 educators from the 2020 cohort will be selected to receive personal coaching from the project team and financial resources to implement a community mushroom training effort.

Join us on Tuesday, January 28 at 3 p.m. EST for an informational webinar with the project team where you can learn more and have your questions answered. If you can’t join live, we will share a recording.

Steve Gabriel

Steve is an Extension Specialist focused on specialty mushroom production and agroforestry. Throughout his career, Steve has taught thousands of people about the ways farming and forestry can be combined to both benefit the ecology and economies of small farms.  He is also a farmer, author, hiker, and musician.
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