Quail Springs Permaculture

Home
United States
Arroyo Grande, CA
Quail Springs Permaculture

Directions Website

We are a leading educational nonprofit in Southern California focused on social and environmental justice through education and advocacy.

www.quailsprings.org/donate

09/24/2026

A few glimpses from our time with Occidental Arts & Ecology Ctr 🌱
Some of our team headed north to Occidental Arts & Ecology Center, carrying questions about what it takes to tend land and community over the long haul. How do we share responsibility, support one another, and build organizations that can keep growing alongside the places we care for?

This visit was a chance to learn from another land-based nonprofit, deepen relationships, and make room for the exchange that can be hard to find in the fullness of our everyday work. Our landscapes are different, but many of the questions connect us.

Thank you, Occidental Arts & Ecology Ctr for welcoming us into your home and sharing your time and experience so generously. And thank you to Creative Change Coalition for the grant that made this trip possible, supporting time to learn from one another and strengthen the relationships that sustain our work.

As we welcome the autumn equinox, we’re grateful for these connections, and for all we get to steward through the changing seasons. 🍂

07/02/2026

🪏 Calling in devoted and curious people who are hungry to learn and create beauty together through disciplined and responsible work, humility, and creativity. 🪄

The Work Trade program is an opportunity for folks to tend relations to the land and waterways, food webs, and intimate off-grid community, while collaborating with us in caring for our plant, animal, facilities, infrastructure, and social systems.

Work traders learn the confidence to care for goat and chicken systems, build soil and compost, care for plants from seed to harvest and seed again, process dairy and vegetable products, and learn the basics of gravity fed surface water systems, solar systems, and sustainable waste management.

In addition to these practical skills, this program offers an introduction to the community skills necessary to collaborate with a rural collective who lives, plays, works, and faces challenges together.

Participant contribution includes daily farm chores, weekly farm team work parties, and community care including dinner cooking/cleanups and commons chores. Work traders share in the abundance of the food on site including a plethora of dry staples, farm fresh goods(eggs, dairy, produce, meat), and other communal groceries. Accommodations include spacious personal canvas tents with a mattress and light storage.

As a collective, we are guided by the ethics of earth care, people care, and fair share (or surplus redistribution). We explore what it means to work and walk by these values; to be in service to life and deepen our resistance to systemic and ecological violence that pulls our attention and energy away from each other and our more-than-human relations.

As we witness and experience climate collapse and the violent injustices in our communities, we practice to remember how our attention is a portal for deeper healing and magic with our roles in the ecosystem of life and death. What can our reclaimed attention liberate for our nervous systems, and how can our settled, attuned, and attentive bodies become vessels for the music of liberation?

Application and info: https://www.quailsprings.org/about-us/opportunities/work-trade/

06/21/2026

🌿 Applications for the fall work trade program are now OPEN! They close July
10 -- submit the earlier the better!

Move in to Quail Springs is September 6, and ends December 20.
3-4 spaces available

Interviews following application submission. Folks will be aware of an invitation to the program by the end of July at the latest.

Apply and read the program description at our link in bio or at https://www.quailsprings.org/about-us/opportunities/work-trade/

Questions? email [email protected]

03/26/2026

We’re so excited to share news of the evolution of our team!

River, our previous Director of Operations, stepped into the role of Executive Director of People and Systems last fall, supporting our staff to continue thriving in our unique ecosystem. They are the earth and mountain grounding us as we grow amidst the changing landscape.

Jess transitioned into the role of Director of Food Systems, feeding her true passion: finding alternatives to the dominant food paradigm through systems change. With sharp focus and attention to detail, Jess is slowly and consistently spinning the webs and networks fortify a sustainable future.

You can read more about the on our website team page.

P.S. Swipe right for photos of Jess and River with their hardworking assistants

01/18/2026

2026 has not had an easy start, with continued heartbreaks both close at home and across oceans.

The land, however, reminds us that just as they, our bodies and spirits move in cycles and winter is time for us to slow down and reflect.

At Quail Springs, we have a yearly tradition of Nurturing Week, a time of connection, care, and reciprocity. Nurturing Week looks a little bit different from year to year, but the goal is always the same: to feed our spirits, minds, and bodies in a world that moves in rapidly unsustainable paces.

During this past Nurturing Week in early January, we took time away from organizational work, to tend the land collectively, to foster a deeper sense of connection to place, with each other, with ourselves.

Some of us harvested bounty from land and sea to create decadent meals for the community, others ran with goats as if part of the herd. Game nights and long rests ensued. One of our traditions (an official Quail Springs holiday) of a Secret Special Friend gift exchange cradled the week, a labor of love where many spent hours creating crafts by hand with the receiver in mind.

For the week, we can just be, and remember a quintessential aspect of being human in the world. We hold this week of nurturance sacred so that we can recharge to continue the work of building the world that we wish to see.

12/12/2025

One of our greatest blessings this year has been working with Vanessa, our Community Outreach Coordinator! Vanessa has been living in New Cuyama for a little over a year now and has fully dug her hands into the clay-filled soil of this valley and its community; she is the treasurer of the Cuyama Emergency Response Team (CERT), is mentoring with the Groundwater Sustainability Advisory Council, works with the Cuyama Valley Community Library, is an active member of the Jardines Victorias program, and on top of all of that, is a gardener, parent to a goat, plus many ducks, chickens, cats, and dogs.

Vanessa’s dedication to community, sustainability, and all forms of life has allowed her to flourish in Cuyama and is a natural at connecting with everyone she meets. At 24 years old, she teaches us so much about what it means to be rooted in community. Her role has allowed Quail Springs to deepen our connections with our neighbors in New Cuyama, and we couldn’t be more grateful! We love you Vanessa!

Address

Arroyo Grande, CA

Website

http://www.quailsprings.org/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Quail Springs Permaculture posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Want your organization to be the top-listed non profit organization in Arroyo Grande?