Maine Local Living School
nurturing the human-earth relationship
Apprenticeship Program
Climate resilient living emerging from the confluence of ancestral knowledge, science, permaculture design, intuition and good old fashioned hands-in-the-dirt experience
The Maine Local Living School Apprenticeship is training for the transition. Energy downshift, climate resilience, bioregionalism, community living, land ethics, reciprocity with the living world; these are all frameworks that undergird our daily
work. The day-to-day revolves around building skills and tending the systems that reflect these big ideas --and sharing this with others through educational programing. We want apprentices to leave here with the knowledge and skills to begin (or continue) making the world they want to live in.
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8 week experience
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Sliding scale $1,500 - $3,000
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18 years or older
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Substance free community living
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Over 70 apprenticeships since 2009
Skill Building at Maine Local Living School
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Subsistence-scale agriculture
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Food preservation
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Humanure composting
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Handcraft (bowls, spoons, baskets, etc.)
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Hand tool sharpening and use
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Forestry and food forests
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Alternative building
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Fermentation
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Wild gathering food and fiber
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Mushroom cultivation
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Stonework
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Leatherwork and tanning
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Animal raising including dairy goats and ducks
Constructing Knowledge
Weekly Seminar: once a week apprentices gather to study alternatives to the mainstream culture that prioritizes economic growth over people and planet. Through discussion, film, guest teachers and lecture, we study ecology, permaculture, social and cultural models and movements, educational pedagogy, and practices for kinship and connection.
Constructing Knowledge
Program Cost
The actual cost of the program is $2,300 in direct costs. If you can afford $1,500, the low end of the scale, and no more, we welcome you! If your personal or family means allow you to pay $2,300, you are helping maintain the financial sustainability of this program. If you are able to pay more than $2,300, you will be supporting fellow apprentices with less means to participate.
We want the MLLS apprenticeship to be a transformational learning experience, and take time to make it so, through field trips, craft workshops, guest speakers, and dedicated facilitation. Most years, the first week of the program also overlaps with Homesteading 101, a graduate level course in permaculture and bioregional living in which apprentices participate at no extra cost.
We trust you to contribute what you can toward this program, no questions asked.
If you have questions for us about this policy, or need to request a scholarship below the low end, please don't hesitate to reach out--207-778-0318 or info(at)mainelocalliving.org.
What Are Former Apprentices Saying? (Over 70 since 2009)
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The question of how we should live must be one that is in many people, I know it is in me. MLLS Apprenticeship in many ways felt like an answer to that question, an answer that came in the form of many more questions since earth is always changing. I have come to see something of how the way we live is a response to a particular place/community of life. We can respond to disturbance to direct life in a way that sustains us, others, and is beautiful. ~Laura Hepner 25’
What did you learn: Basics (and scientific magic!) of humanure composting, sourdough bread making, acorn processing (I have missed eating acorn this summer), that I can cook without a recipe, how it feels to carry all your water (great), how it feels to cary water for others (even better, especially in retrospect), how it feels to know that your friends carried the water (gratitude, encouragement), how to tend ground for trees, capturing the gift, working with disturbance, trees are ponds in the sky(!), questions and consciousness about the animacy of my language, when to put tools down/pick them up, lessons on how to meet people where they're at, eagerness to seek out wisdom and stories… ~Laura Hepner 25’
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I learned a lot about relating: to myself, the human community, and the more than human community. I will take with me feelings of confidence, belief in myself, gratitude, and a more actualized understanding that literally everything that sustains our lives is of this earth and from this earth. ~Gabriel Kautz 25’
Apprenticeship has been a rite of passage I was deeply seeking. Just as fall apprentices shared with the homeschool group, the apprenticeship program has been a space for me to inherit and explore an ethic of care in all my relationships on this land. Whether I am turning a bed in the garden, singing with friends during a community gathering, weaving a basket, or chopping wood and carrying water, Maine Local Living School has been a place for me to root my heart in the experience of being human on this earth. ~Kayleigh Martin 25’
“Within the first week of being here the realization that I can have a good impact, that I don’t need to be afraid of my own humanness ...or minimize the humanity that I am, has reshaped how I can live in my own body and the world.”
This time has been some of the most concentrated learning time that I have had in a long time. I have really committed, 100% to being a student and a learner. This time has fulfilled what I was looking for. I am now ready to go into the world and fulfill my purpose, duty and desire to be an educator. I am going to go teach at a Forest School for grades 4, 5, and 6! ~Joseph Brown 25’
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Maybe the most important transformation was the deep-seated awareness that all gifts come from Mother Earth, and that my vital force relies on my relationship with her living beings. It is more than a relationship with one's food, but an understanding that wood makes up my home, clean water is filtered by plants. We must give back to the earth as she’s taken care of us. ~ Rio Nolund 2024’
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I simply feel like I am a capable person again. Getting the chance to do valuable work, and seeing my own competence level rise in a variety of different areas, has been incredibly rewarding. I have struggled for many years to find purpose in my life, and I can’t explain the weight that this experience has lifted from my shoulders. ~Cole Iofola 2024’
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The beauty of the MLLS apprenticeship and school is that it holds space for us to learn without being overwhelmed by all that we do not know. These are troubled times, but their gift is that so many of us are now questioning how we live and asking how to rebuild our relationships with the world. In this, we, I, children, young people, adults, all need space and support to grow the knowledge in our hands, bodies, and minds; Maine Local Living School provides that space and is living that mission. Upon leaving I find myself better able to offer teaching and support to others wherever I go, and so the learning expands outwards. ~Jacquelynn Ward, 21’