Women's Environmental Institute

Thank you for supporting Women's Environmental Institute during GTMD 23! Your generosity has replenished our scholarship fund and contributed to the success of WEI's numerous farming, education and activism programs. We deeply appreciate your support.

Today is the day to make your gift go even farther! Between now and 11:59 pm tonight, your donation increases our chances of receiving bonus prize grants, which will all go toward funding our environmental justice-focused farming, education, and activism initiatives. Thank you so much for supporting our work.

The Women’s Environmental Institute is a nonprofit environmental justice organization that brings together food, racial and gender justice strategies in urban and rural places — one community at a time, one farm at a time, one person at a time and all of us together.

Nothing is more essential than clean food, air, and water. Yet many communities of color and low-income Minnesotans struggle with food insecurity and disproportionate levels of toxic environmental exposures. By supporting the Women's Environmental Institute (WEI) you are helping address these inequities and making a real difference for traditionally underserved communities.

Founded in 2003, the Women’s Environmental Institute (WEI) was an early leader in the grassroots movement toward environmental justice, and this year celebrates 20 years of work toward that mission. WEI implements strategies that include hands-on education in organic farming and sustainable living; advocacy work for racial, gender, economic, and environmental justice; and both urban and rural community-based access to equitable food production.

Through its work, WEI serves as a greenhouse of ideas to "seed" environmentally sound practices, social and economic equity, and agricultural justice into all of our lives. We invite you to plant a seed for a greener, more just world with your gift to WEI today. 

Your gift in any amount helps cultivate a healthier, more just Minnesota. Thank you!

Your gift during 2023 Give to the Max will support:

• Scholarships for our Educational Programs, which serve the next generation of organic farmers and all interested participants in everything from farming, beekeeping, goat husbandry, and aquaponics to herbalism, soil health, and chainsaw safety. At this year's Will Allen Farmer Training Weekend, every single participant was supported by a WEI scholarship. We see this as an indicator that we are meeting the access gaps to land-based education and training. This year's Give to the Max donations will help replenish WEI's scholarship fund, to help ensure all of our programs remain accessible. 
• Advocacy Work for Environmental Justice where it’s needed most, particularly in the Phillips and other low-income and BIPOC neighborhoods of the Metro.
• Farming and Food Security, including WEI's 40-acre, organically certified, regenerative demonstration and education farm on the Amador Hill Farm Campus in North Branch, Minnesota. The farm supports a CSA program, active internships, incubator farming opportunities, community visitors, students, and volunteers. 
• Veggie Rx, a program that delivers weekly boxes of farm-fresh produce to clients and patients at rural clinics in East-Central Minnesota.
• North Circle Online Farmers Market, which connects residents in East-Central Minnesota with local small-scale organic and regenerative farmers. North Circle works in tandem with Veggie Rx to help build a regional farming and food system.

Please learn more about our programs, membership, and volunteer opportunities at w-e-i.org. And please celebrate with us and our up-and-coming generation 20 years of nonprofit justice work. 

2023 marks the 20th anniversary of WEI's founding, and in May our community of partners, collaborators and supporters came together to share 20 years' worth of stories, recognize environmental justice wins, and reenergize for the work to come. This video captures a glimpse of this celebration - please take a minute to hear from the special guests who joined us.