Greenspell Annual Open House
The Greenspell Annual Open House offers students of our Bioregional Herbalism Intensive the opportunity to engage our Chicago community and give back a little bit of what they learned throughout the seven month course.
Through student-led workshops and a sliding-scale apothecary booth, this open house supports our ongoing efforts to provide more accessible herbal remedies and education, empowering community members to engage with herbal medicines and wellness practices to cultivate preventative self-care and abundant aliveness!
Gathering and Sharing Knowledge
Throughout the seven month intensive, students connect with medicinal plants, learning to harvest, process, extract for medicine, formulate, blend, bottle, and eventually guide community members as to which herbal remedies will best support them. This gives students the opportunity to learn about the practice of bioregional herbalism through each step of the process. At the open house, students organize and lead their own workshops and offer herbal preparations we made as a group back to our community, so the herbal goodness continues to spread.
sign up for a workshop
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
sign up for a workshop 𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
2024 Workshop Lineup
10:00-10:45am – Green Gratitude: Cut-Up Poetry for the Earth with Taven Frank
11:00-11:45am – Painting with Plants & Rocks with Jacqueline Anderson
1:00-1:45pm – DIY Fire Cider Workshop with Rashida Gokcebag
2:00-2:30pm (Inside) – Herbal Spell Candles with Colleen Pecho
2:00-2:45pm (Outside) – Alleyway Weeds Plant Walk with Betsy Merbitz
3:00-3:45pm – Sauerkraut Fermentation Workshop with Melanie Molnar
4:00-4:45pm – Bitter Foods & Beverages with Jiaqi Li
Sign up for workshops individually or purchase all at once at a discount and with a free gift!
Our Annual Open House over the years…
Before we had our own studio, this event was called First Curve’s ‘Community Apothecary Pop-up’ because we would pop up around town to share our offerings. Our first pop-up on November 6, 2021 was hosted by Chicago Patchwork Farms with a lively fire cider making workshop, a community apothecary stand with sliding-scale herbal remedies, yoga, free zines, delicious and toasty herb-infused apple cider, and more. The next two years we popped up across the street from the Logan Square Farmer’s Market in October at the Comfort Station in Logan Square. These pop-ups included everything we had at our first, plus student-led workshops, tarot readings, and guided meditations. Now that we’ve got our own home, we’d love to invite you in to our cozy space and enjoy some of the same stuff we saw in past years, plus a few new surprises :)
Fundraising
Every pop-up and open house we’ve offered are entirely non-profit and donation-based. No one turned away for lack of funds.
Financial support is greatly appreciated though! Earnings from each year are allocated in several ways, depending on the year, often going to local urban farms, a scholarship fund for the Greenspell Bioregional Herbalism Intensive, our herbal free clinic, local community empowerment initiatives and non-profits, and the costs of running the Open House.
This year, proceeds from the Open House will go primarily to our Scholarship Fund for the Greenspell Herbalism Intensive and to support and subsidize our Herbal Free Clinic which provides no-fee consultations and a discount on custom herbal formulas for individuals who may not be able to afford the full price of a private consultation. Scroll down below to see other ways these funds are allocated!
What your dollars support:
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). Revenue from the open house will help us get to that point.
Greenspell Intensive Scholarships
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. Revenue from the open house 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 contributions through our open house 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.
Revenue from the open house 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!