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Living Earth Center brings people of all traditions together to cultivate common ground and seek justice through education, encounter, and community agriculture.

Featured Programs and Interests

 

Through our Community Food Connection Program, LEC directly connects people to the land and to healthy, organic produce.  We are able to confront the issues of food insecurity and sovereignty in our community collaboratively through a multi-faceted approach.  From youth educational programming to navigating ways for emerging growers to enter the local food economy, LEC works with our Community Partners to create pathways to food and land access and agency over food choices.

 

  • Located on the former farm site of the School Sisters of Notre Dame, the Living Earth Gardens provide a beautiful organic space where neighbors and family can gather, grow food, and nurture a self-sufficient empowered community.
    Individual gardeners, as well as community partners (MY Place, MRCI, and MNSU College of Allied Health and Nursing's Eng-AGE-ment Garden) tend their plots together. Our garden is as diverse as Mankato itself – including everyone from native Minnesotans to new immigrants. Ten different languages are spoken by the 120+ gardeners.

  • Since 2021, LEC has worked in partnership with Blue Earth County to manage the Blue Earth County Community Farm. The Farm is home to our Food Donation Program. All food grown through this program is donated back to into the community. Under the guidance of our Farm Manager, both individuals and groups volunteer their time to tend to these plots.

    Since 2022, the Farm has also been home to our Emerging Growers Program, which addresses food sovereignty in the Mankato area by partnering with community members who have expressed concern that they are unable to access culturally significant foods and/or want to grow larger amounts of produce but do not have access to land.

  • Living Earth Center provides opportunities where minds can be opened, ideas can be shared, and growth can take place through workshops, events, and conferences offered throughout the year. Honoring all spiritual traditions and paths, Living Earth Center also holds gatherings to honor seasonal transitions with ritual and reflection. Find out more by clicking here.

  • Living Earth Center believes that each person makes a valuable contribution to the world and systemic change can be traced all the way down to the individual level. Whether you are interested in donating, volunteering, gardening, learning or making a meaningful shift, you are helping to create a ripple effect within the local and greater Earth community.
    Read more about how to get involved by clicking here.

Sharing Common Ground

Like a healthy ecosystem, we believe that everyone has something important and valuable to offer to our local and greater Earth community. We believe in bringing people with different backgrounds and strengths together to share common ground over food, learning and storytelling. We invite you to join us in celebrating nature's abundance and honoring our shared resilience and responsibility in the interconnection of everything. 

News and Updates

July 9, 2024
byLiving Earth Center

While 2024 may technically be the Year of the Dragon, up at the Community Garden on Good Counsel Hill, it feels more like the Year of the Rabbit.

Rabbits seem to have taken over the Community Garden this summer, prompting gardeners to put up fencing around their individual plots to keep the voracious herbivores at bay. From nests of babies (see photo) to the big fellas who seem to be bent on eating all the greens they can get their adorable paws on, this year is rife with rabbits.

"They ate all our beans!" said LEC Program Manager Cora Uiygue...

June 10, 2024
byLiving Earth Center

LEC is honored that our Community Garden is home for the marigolds growing for Mankato's Day of the Dead Celebration in October. On Saturday, June 8th Day of the Dead Committee Members, other community members, and LEC staff and volunteers gathered to bless the seeds, plants, and land.

The ceremony was Indigenous Women-led and rooted in Mesoamerican Indigenous cultural practices. After the ceremony those in attendance planted...

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