More Summer Internships!

The Eco-Stewards Program is happy to announce four wonderful summer internship opportunities working at organic gardens and farms around the country.

Love gardening? Camp Albermarle in Bogue Sound, North Carolina is looking to hire a paid intern who will maintain their new camp garden, start a composting and vermicomposting program, and create environmental education programming. Read more here.

Love farming? Camp Holmes in Holmes, New York is looking for an intern to help with the camp’s new sustainable farm project. The paid intern will harvest produce, care for farm animals, tend composting and vermicomposting, plan environmental education activities and more. Learn more here.

Love Montana? Greenwood Farm in Hardin, Montana near Crow Indian Reservation is offering an unpaid summer internship for someone with a passion for sustainable, organic farming in a Christian community. The intern will help with a variety of farm projects from fence building to weed control to free-range poultry to harvesting and stacking hay and much more. This position also provides opportunities for community service at a homeless day center, community garden and a new community health center. Read more here.

Love Nebraska? Calvin Crest Camp in Fremont, Nebraska wants to hire a paid summer intern to create activities for campers to get involved with the new camp garden. The goal is to get campers thinking about how the food they eat connects to their work in the garden. The intern will also build a sustainable composting program for the camp and encourage community involvement in the garden.  Learn more here.

Love New Jersey? Johnsonburg Presbyterian Center in rural northwest New Jersey is looking for a intern to tend the camp garden and create composting and recycling systems. Read more here.

Can’t commit to an internship? Then join our week-long Eco-Stewards Program in June and meet other young adults who are passionate about connecting faith and environmental stewardship in practical ways. Our theme this year is Climate Change & Christian Activism, June 2-9 program in Boston & Vermont. Click here for more info.

Eco-Stewards Share Experiences

2011 Eco-Stewards enjoy a hike under the beautiful Montana sky.

Thanks to everyone who took time to take our program evaluation survey! We got some incredible feedback about  previous weeklong programs and internships. We’ve included just a few of the great responses below, and it gives anyone, past participants or newly interested applicants, insight into this meaningful and transformative program.

Just a reminder that you can apply for the weeklong program and summer internships.  You have nothing to lose and so much to gain!

Responses from past Eco-Stewards:

“I received some much-needed encouragement. I somehow manage to find myself in situations where people do not see the connections between earth and faith that I see–or situations where people simply don’t care about the earth. It is easy to let the loneliness turn into an impediment. The Eco-Stewards program & the internship, too, helped me not just realize, but experience that I am part of a larger network of people trying to make a difference around them in small ways and large ways. That experience still keeps me going, two years later.” Response to: Was your personal faith or religious belief(s) changed or impacted during the week? If so, in what way(s)?

“I think my desire to integrate faith with environmental concern was greatly supported by this program and the participants in it during a critical time. Hearing the stories of others and seeing the variety of ways in which people were engaging this subjects was deeply encouraging as well as thought and action provoking.” Response to: Was your personal faith or religious belief(s) changed or impacted during the week? If so, in what way(s)?

“The time spent listening to each others’ stories, working in small and large groups, making music. So good to hear the perspectives from such a diverse group of people.” Response to: Of all the activities and experiences you encountered during your week, what was the most meaningful part for you? Why?

“Your actions and choices have an impact. Your care for the earth is right and just. Applying and sharing what you learned is the ripple in the pond that will make change. Prayer is important in all of these issues.” Response to: “What was the most important idea you took away from your Eco-Stewards experience?”

“I found the welcoming and ecumenical nature of the eco-stewards program to be particularly relevant to the current needs of our often divided society. I also found the presenters to be thoughtful and insightful as they engaged a variety of topics. The focus at the end on discerning one’s own specific calling in relation to faith and the environment was a particularly good way to integrate the activities of the week with the specific context of one’s life.” Response to: Any additional comments?

Apply Now for the Eco-Stewards Vermont & Boston Program

Applications are now available for our June 2-9, 2012 Eco-Stewards Program in Vermont and Boston. Spread the word! This program for young adults (age 20-30) will focus on Climate Change & Christian Activism in light of the recent surge in protest movements from Occupy Wall Street to Tar Sands Action to 350.org. Join us in Boston as we meet with Occupy Boston’s spiritual leaders and visit Walden Pond to discuss Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience. In Vermont, we will help with Hurricane Irene relief projects in Vermont, talk with author and climate change activist Bill McKibben and his 350.org’s grassroots organizers, and discuss our individual eco-faith journeys while hiking in the Green Mountains or paddling the Connecticut River.  Questions? Send an email to revrobmark@gmail.com