Partners and Sponsors
Educational Partners
Frontier Natural Products and Aura Cacia
VCIH is grateful to be part of Frontier/Aura Cacia’s Partners In Education Program, which makes our students eligible for a competitive annual scholarship. They also provide us with free products and education related to essential oils to share with our community.
Goddard College
VCIH and the Health Arts and Sciences: Bridging Nature, Culture and Healing (HAS) program of Goddard College are engaged in a learning partnership. Combining study in Vermont and in student’s home communities, this joint learning opportunity enables VCIH students who seek a fully accredited college degree to apply their learning (and transfer credits at the undergraduate level) to their personalized program of study in Health Arts and Sciences.
By drawing upon the practitioner training available from VCIH, in conjunction with the ongoing inquiry and broader scholarship facilitated in HAS, students can become practitioner-scholars of Western herbal medicine and expand their focus beyond herbal medicine within the HAS program. Upon graduation, students can choose to work as clinicians, consultants, educators or in numerous other fields, or they may pursue additional study. Learn more
To learn more about the Health Arts and Sciences Program at Goddard College, you may visit Goddard’s website, or call 800.906.8312.
United Plant Savers
UpS is a non-profit organization dedicated to the conservation of North American native medicinal plants and their habitats. VCIH is honored to participate in UpS’s Partners In Education program and to be a past recipient of a $500 grant to support the installation of the small native plant garden that frames our clinic entrance.
Conferences
American Herbalists Guild Symposium
This gathering of professional and student herbalists and the interested public moves around the country each year. Whenever it’s close enough for us to reach easily, VCIH is honored to send faculty and staff to this event.
International Herb Symposium
VCIH faculty and staff attend and present at this biannual conference each time it occurs at Wheaton College in Massachusetts. We hope you’ll join us for the rich exchange and the rousing kava ball, as this conference is a benefit for United Plant Savers.
New England Women’s Herbal Conference
VCIH faculty and staff attend and present at this beautiful and inspiring conference in New Hampshire each August.
Traditions in Western Herbalism Conference / Plant Healer Magazine
VCIH is delighted to have been a sponsor since the inception of this growing grassroots conference, occurring in the Southwest each September. Created and shepherded by Kiva Rose and Jesse Wolf Hardin, TWHC is a standout among conferences, building a strong culture of collaboration and renewed spirit in folk herbalism. Their beautiful Plant Healer Magazine, an excellent online (or print) publication, brings together experience-based and adventurous herbal art and writing from around the country (including from VCIH faculty). Each issue is over 200 pages long and a feast for mind and heart!
Grantors/Supporters
Hunger Mountain Coop
We are grateful to Hunger Mountain Coop, a member-owned natural market in Montpelier Vermont, for providing the funding to produce a conference display board in 2011 and for continuing to support our fundraising efforts through event donations.
Mountain Rose Herbs
In business since 1987, Mountain Rose Herbs is the preferred bulk supply company of many herbalists. VCIH uses them to stock our apothecary because we trust their commitment to quality, sustainable agriculture and fair trade. They source from large and small growers (including Zack Woods Herb Farm in VT) and are incredibly supportive of educational efforts across the country.
Best of all, when you make purchases from Mountain Rose, they will generously donate 15% of your total to us! Just click on their logo on our Support page to be take to the Mountain Rose site and shop as always. Only sales that originate from our website will count, so be sure to come through VCIH to begin your shopping. Their donations will automatically be credited to us. Consider sharing this great program with other herb-buying folks!
New Chapter
Many thanks to New Chapter organic herbal supplements company in Brattleboro, Vermont, for making possible our purchase of a digital projector and educational materials, as well as expanded promotion of our community clinic in 2011.
Zack Woods Herb Farm
Our friends Jeff Carpenter and Melanie Slick-Carpenter started Zack Woods Herb Farm in 2001 to fulfill their dreams of providing high-quality herbs to the community, while stewarding the land they love. They support our work by generously offering VCIH a discount on bulk herbs, as well as providing a farm tour for our first-year students every year. We always learn new things and have fun helping out with the calendula harvest. We encourage everyone to order their gorgeous bulk herbs directly or find single herbs and tea blends at local retailers.
Green Sylk Soap Company
Thank you to our friend Joann Darling of Green Sylk Soap Company for providing our clinic and classroom with luxurious olive-oil based hand soap. You can find her bar, liquid, and foaming soaps at co-ops throughout the state and on her Etsy page (link above). Joann uses only pure olive oil, essential oils, dried herbs, and true French green clay for her lovely soaps.
Organizations
American Herbalists Guild
The American Herbalists Guild was founded in 1989 as a non-profit, educational organization to represent the goals and voices of herbalists specializing in the medicinal use of plants. Their primary goal is to promote a high level of professionalism and education in the study and practice of therapeutic herbalism. VCIH is an educational member and our curriculum meets or exceeds the educational guidelines established by AHG.
Northeast Herbalists Association
The Northeast Herbal Association’s mission is to create a strong community of herbalists in the Northeast by providing opportunities for networking, collaboration, herbal education, community outreach, and personal reintegration with the Green World. VCIH is a member of NEHA, and received a grant from the organization in 2011 to help set up our new apothecary!
Other Partners
Numen: The Healing Power of Plants
This documentary film features luminaries such as Rosemary Gladstar and Kenny Ausubel, as well as one of our co-founders and faculty, Guido Masé. Connecting the health of the planet with human health, the message of Numen is that ecological medicine is rooted in whole plant medicine and in the work of herbalists and allied practitioners and activists working towards a sane and sustainable healthcare system. Produced by anthropologist and herbalist Ann Armbrecht and film-maker Terrance Youk, this film and its accompanying website is meant to be a catalyst for conversation and action at the community level. We encourage you to visit the site, check out the articles and resources and get involved. Helpful pages explain everything from how to make a salve to selecting herbs for use in fevers. These articles were written by local herbalists Sandra Lory, Dana Woodruff and VCIH director, Larken Bunce. You might also recognize Larken’s botanical photographs, featuring some of VCIH’s students and gardens.