Celebrating OAEC’s 30th Anniversary!

Thirty years ago this summer, a group of friends who knew each other from activist circles and cultural events pooled their resources to form the intentional community known as Sowing Circle and co-founded OAEC. In three (what seem like short) decades, OAEC has grown from its humble beginnings into a beloved resource for community leaders and social justice groups seeking to ground their work in ecological literacy, place-based knowledge and integrative design throughout the Bay Area and beyond.

We owe an immense debt of gratitude to all who have come before us – from the Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo first peoples who have tended this land since time immemorial to the Farallones Institute who laid the groundwork in the 70’s for the bustling center of regenerative thinking we now call OAEC. Thousands upon thousands of students, volunteers, friends and visitors have dug their hands into this soil – both literal and figurative – and have collectively cultivated OAEC’s fertile ground that has borne so much fruit! We are honored and humbled to have had the privilege of living on, learning from, caring for, and sharing with others this precious land we call home.

In the coming months, we hope to share with you some stories from memory lane as we celebrate our 30 years of accomplishments and vision forward to what OAEC can become in the next 30!

Commemorative artwork above, original hand-cut paper, by Catherine Sieck