SMC goes to Whippoorwill Earth Skills Festival
By: Michael Mason
This past month, Smoky Mountain Center visited the fourth annual Whippoorwill earth skills Festival in Berea, Kentucky. This served as a great opportunity for us to learn many new skills as well as to gain insight on how we may want to lead our own own workshops, which we are currently preparing for a public gardening festival at the end of the summer.
The festival offered over 75 workshops this year covering a variety of topics, and we could choose to attend whatever we were most interested in learning. To name a few there was meditation, hugelkultur gardening, worm composting, leatherwork, and a few field trips to local farms.
Leatherworking workshop where you could learn to make your own moccasins or a handbag.
Camping area where SMC members and staff stayed during the festival
We also volunteered in the kitchen during the event helping with food prep, serving, and dishes.
During this festival we learned many knew skills and brushed up on some others. We also left with a much better idea in mind for how to lead our own workshops in our *Community Garden Festival taking place at the end of August!
-Michael
*Smoky Mountain Center’s Community Garden Festival takes place in Knoxville, Tennessee at the Center for Urban Agriculture on Saturday, August 29th from 12-4pm. This event offers FREE workshops presented by the Smoky Mountain Center of North Carolina including: Composting with Worms, Appalachian Seasonal Cooking, DIY Solar Oven for Kids, and Scraps to Gardens – Upcycling. Participate in a juicy watermelon eating contest to get a chance to win a $25 gift certificate to the Three Rivers Market Co-op! Enjoy food, music, kids crafts, take a tour of the beautiful gardens, and meet some of your local non-profits in the Knoxville area. This family friendly event will include various hands-on activities for children and adults of all ages. We cannot wait to see you at the Center for Urban Agriculture on August 29th!
