Work Trade

One of the most exciting ways to spend time at Emerald Earth is through our work trade program. Work trade positions are open from April – October, when the dry weather makes camping pleasant. We love it if people can stay for the entire time but ask a minimum commitment of 2 months.

Work traders are expected to work 30 hours per week. This includes a wide range of projects including building, gardening, maintenance, firewood, etc. as well as your share of cooking and cleaning. It also includes participating in weekly business meetings and bi-weekly sharing meetings. We try to have a couple of focused work days each week, supervised by one of our community members and focused on a particular project. At other times you will work without supervision. While we welcome people with specific interests, such as natural building or permaculture, we do expect work traders to help with all different types of work.

We have about four work parties during the season that we ask you to be present for. We will also be offering courses in Natural Building that you are welcome to participate in, although we may ask you to help with cooking, cleaning, and site management during them. Because of our various events, the schedule of our work week changes frequently, and we ask you to be flexible. We can generally accommodate your need for time off site if it is scheduled in advance.

Several of our members have extensive experience with natural building, permaculture, and gardening, as well as various healing modalities, spiritual practices, group process and facilitation, and many other areas of interest. We encourage work traders to take advantage of the opportunities for learning in all these areas. The most important characteristics we are looking for in work traders are an eagerness to learn and to work hard, as well as a compatibility of values and personalities. We do not require any specific experience or skills, although if you do have applicable skills they will be appreciated and put to use.

Work traders stay in tents (we have some large tents that may be available) and have access to indoor and outdoor showers and outdoor composting toilets. We cook and eat most lunches and all dinners together. We eat almost entirely organic food, mostly vegetarian with our own eggs and occasional chicken or fish. If you have special dietary requirements, please tell us.

We ask people to a portion of their food costs, which amounts to around $100 per month. All phone calls are from a cell phone, which costs about $.20/minute. Otherwise it can be very inexpensive to live here. It works best if work-traders have enough savings to cover their expenses during their time here, as it can be difficult to coordinate on-site work and money-making or other off-site commitments. We are a 20-minute drive from the nearest small town, with a natural food store, post office, and laundromat. Sorry, we are generally not open to work-traders bringing pets.

We will need to meet you and spend a day or two working together before we can offer you a position. Give us a call or email if this sounds interesting to you, or if you have other questions. We look forward to hearing from you.