Quail Springs: BUILDING RESILIENCE

Quail Springs
BUILDING RESILIENCE

"I really believe in what you are doing; you are providing a remarkable role model for our society as well as accomplishing a crucial task of taking care of people and nature!"

Mauricio, Quail Springs donor

In these rapidly changing times, resilience is needed more than ever. Resilience is only built with deep dedication and in cooperation with one another. 

As a global community, we face one climate crisis after another, and the ongoing pandemic has brought into greater clarity how interdependent we all are. We remain fragile if we don’t look out for each other, especially those amongst us who continue to suffer from lack of access to water, food, shelter, and healthy natural ecosystems. 

Your gift helps Quail Springs meet the challenge of these times with our unwavering mission to cultivate both ecological and social health.

As a small but mighty non-profit, we feel emboldened by the work we do with passion and compassion, humility and care. We have the ambitious goal this year of raising $200,000 to move our work forward.

Will you join our cause?

SHELTER. Many of us now ask when our homes and land will burn, not if. At Quail Springs, we build homes that are designed to last centuries and to withstand fire. If our shelters do burn, we create homes that will not poison our neighbors downwind, and if our shelters erode into the earth, they will not leave a toxic environment for our grandchildren. Earthen test walls we built this past spring are drying in preparation for rating by the American Society for Testing Materials (ASTM E119 fire rating). We also are lab testing earthen material for compression and insulative properties to affect California building code. In all of this, we remember that our advocacy for earthen structures originates as much from our ecological need for fire-resistant, low-impact materials as from our societal need for affordable housing.

WATER. Our Cuyama Valley has been recognized as one of the most critically over-drafted groundwater basins in California. In response, Quail Springs advises groundwater policy, participates in public meetings and the formal public comment process, researches the local hydrogeologic conditions, engages in activist networks, and teaches science and water awareness in the local schools. We hold leadership roles in the Standing Advisory Committee and the Groundwater Sustainability Agency and are founding members of the Cuyama Valley Community Association. We are dreaming of working with the community to create a multi-generational “stream team” to steward our region’s springs and seeps along with their groundwater dependent ecosystems into the sustainable future.

FOOD. It takes a village! The Quail Springs community continues to learn and share our water-wise strategies for producing food in our challenging high desert environment. Demonstrating regenerative small-scale food systems is critically important for local resilience. The beloved Quail Springs herd of dairy goats forages daily on the landscape and provides more than we could have ever imagined. The small flock of chickens provides eggs and valuable manure. Beekeeping allows us to share the magic of these hive-minded miracle-workers. Our Farm Team thrives in sharing this work with our communities.

EDUCATION. Online education is a natural outgrowth of the work that we are known for world-wide. This past year, adapting to the challenges of the pandemic, we successfully launched the online version of our flagship Permaculture Design Course. This course provided high-quality accessible and affordable education, which created the fertile ground for a vibrant international cohort. This fall we launch two new online courses, the Natural Building Course and the Land-Based Living Course. We provide scholarships for those with lesser means as well as for Black and Indigenous People of Color who have been historically denied access to land on this continent.

OUTREACH. It’s been a challenging year for our Cuyama Valley community. Quail Springs was honored to volunteer for the Cuyama Valley Family Resource Center delivering senior meals to those made food insecure by the pandemic. With a grant from the Department of Water Resources, we produced water awareness films, offered online science education to Cuyama K–12 students, and hosted outdoor botanical drawing classes for Cuyama community members. In collaboration with CVFRC and Cuyama youth, we’re co-creating the Imagination Garden at the Family Resource Center, where we contribute by sharing our knowledge of native plants, plant medicine, soil regeneration, composting, seed collection, and growing food.

Individual donors are a huge part of our network—
those who have supported us long-term
and new contributors stepping forward.
 
Will you make a donation to support our work?

Every contribution of any amount 
makes all the difference in ensuring our ability 
to build resilience together. 

Thank you for your support!