Mutual Aid Fund
Greenspell is dedicated to making herbalism and ecological awareness accessible to our community – if you have the means to financially support our mission, we have two primary avenues for you to contribute:
Make a one-time or recurring donation →
Purchase products from First Curve Apothecary.
100% of all donations received goes into our mutual aid fund. 1% of all revenue generated from First Curve Apothecary product sales goes into our mutual aid fund.
Donate
How Mutual Aid Funds are allocated:
Herbal Free Clinic
The Herbal Free Clinic provides no-fee consultations and a discount on herbal products for individuals who may not be able to afford the full price of a holistic herbal consultation. Eventually, we’d love for the clinic to be entirely Free (including custom herbal formulations). Your contributions will help us get to that point.
Herbal Mutual Aid Group
Since late 2025, students of Greenspell’s multi-month herbalism courses have been working together to grow an herbal mutual aid group to offer herbal support to Chicago communities.
Your contributions support the group’s ability to obtain materials to prepare useful herbal remedies and distribute them as community needs require.
Volunteer Speaking Engagements & Skillshares
There are many instances where Alex invited to speak or offer a workshop / skillshare / or plant walk for a community organization that may not be able to pay Alex for his time and offerings. Your contributions help to offset the costs associated with these volunteer offerings, and allow Alex the resources to share as much knowledge as possible with his community.
Scholarships for Greenspell’s multi-month courses
Currently, we are only able to offer two partial scholarships each year for people who would like to participate in the Greenspell Bioregional Herbalism Intensive. Eventually we’d like to offer full scholarships for those interested, but who otherwise wouldn’t have the means to attend. Each contribution supports this possibility.
Free Herbal Products for Indigenous Folks
The plant-based remedies we make through First Curve Apothecary are meant to offer healing with as few barriers as possible, particularly for those who have been overlooked due to oppressive systemic racism and marginalization.
As an herbalist working with and on lands sustained for millennia by Indigenous people, I believe it is important to offer back medicine that I could have never created were it not for the stewardship, knowledge, and care of these Indigenous groups. Towards this end, I offer free product to Indigenous people.
At the moment, we are only able to sustainably offer a limited amount of free herbal product, but your contribution will allow us to increase our offerings.
Future Stewardship Initiatives
One of our long-term goals is to deepen ecological stewardship in the Chicago Region and surrounding areas. We also hope to offer education and skill development related to ecological stewardship.
Your contributions will allow us to orient our efforts toward developing our stewardship initiatives and inviting our community to learn more about stewardship at whatever scale possible.
Greenspell Education Center
A physical location and land to learn in-person, hands on, and in the presence of other curious human beings is in the works! This also requires a lot of resources, and we are trying to avoid taking on debt or inviting in outside investors at all costs, so your support will bring us one step closer to making this happen for our community!