Community Mushroom Educator Network
Cultures around the world have long valued mushrooms as a vital source of nutrition and healing for centuries. Both a food and a medicine, mushrooms are easy to grow at home and on gardens and farms, with minimal startup costs and materials that many may already have on hand. Many communities lack the knowledge of how to get started and build successful growing operations.
With support from USDA-SARE and USDA-AFRI, Cornell Cooperative Extension and the Cornell Small Farms Program is partnering with Farm School NYC to offer a Community Mushroom Educator (CME) Training that aims to build a cohort of educators from urban and rural centers throughout the Northeast. The goal of this effort is to increase both the number and diversity of mushroom educators in the region, so that everyone can access the knowledge and build skills in mushroom growing.
In 2020, we engaged with a dynamic group of educators from around the Northeast region and shared our developed curriculum for an introductory series of workshops that trainees can use to educate their communities in the cultivation, harvest, and distribution of mushrooms. Our educators come from diverse communities and over the course of the spring and summer we met online to learn cultivation techniques and discuss how we can effectively teach skills in our communities.
In Fall-Winter of 2021 / 2022 we will be posting the full curriculum and set of activities here, as well as profiles of our educators who are available as mushrooms educators for a range of needs.
The next training for new Community Mushroom Educators will commence TBD.
Scroll down for more info!
Community Mushroom Educators are a diverse group of educators including those who:
- Live and grow in both rural and urban locations who are committed to community-based teaching
- Engage with community organizations, farm, and community gardens
- Speak multiple languages and can offer bi-lingual trainings, especially in Spanish.
- Work for farming non-profits supporting women, refugee, and people of color in agriculture
- Are enthusiastic about growing mushrooms, and excited to share with others!
Current Community Mushroom Educators
Cecilia De La Fuente
Marina Delgado
Sneha Ganguly
Amanda Heidel, Mushroom Shed, www.mushroomshed.us
Jie Jin, CuriousSeed, www.curiouseed.com
Renee Keitt. Kelly St Garden + New Roots Farm
Leigh Ollman
Aysha Venjara, Falaha Center for Spiritual Agriculture, www.falahacenter.org
Erinn White
What do CMEs learn? How do I get involved?
This project has project has produced a curriculum and activity guides for two introductory workshops: "How to Grow" and "How to Sell or Share the Harvest." We plan to post these in Winter 2021 - 2022 for public access.
We are currently working with our present group of educators to determine how the network will function in 2022 and beyond. Check back here for updates or complete the form below!
Questions can be emailed to:
Steve Gabriel, sfg53@cornell.edu
Yolanda Gonzalez, yg88@cornell.edu
Sign up here to receive info when we announce opportunities for 2022 for the Community Mushroom Educator project:
This material is based upon work supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program under sub award number ENE19-156-33243.