What is the Many Hands Community Apothecary?
The MHCA is a group of garden beds located in the Farm at Awbury, which are cared for and supported by Awbury Arboretum’s nine-month Herbal Aid Ed course.
What we will be making
Each class includes hands-on time in the MHCA garden. As we cover various medicinal processing methods, students will produce infusions, decoctions, tinctures, salves, infused honey, vinegars, electuaries, syrups, flower essences, incense, powders, soaks, and more.
During each monthly class, students make shares of medicine for personal, family, and community distribution and become healing advocates in their community. The program also hosts ongoing opportunities for wider community engagement during garden volunteer days and medicine-making sessions. Additionally, Herbal Aid Ed will include speaker series and one-off classes.
What is the Herbal Aid Ed course?
Herbal Aid Ed is a 9-month course of study designed and facilitated by community herbalist Alyssa Schimmel to celebrate herbal community wisdom and practice through community growing and production of plant medicines to serve collective care.
The program covers an introduction to 40+ plants from a range of cross-cultural traditions, weaving together the wisdom from many hands and many lands that includes cultivated, wild, and native medicines of our Philadelphia bioregion on the ancestral indigenous territory of the Lenni Lenape / Wingohoking. Each class includes hands-on time in the Many Hands Community Apothecary garden on-site at Awbury Arboretum covering various growing methods, as well as medicine processing methods including infusions, decoctions, tinctures, salves, infused honeys, vinegars, electuaries, syrups, flower essences, incense, powders, soaks, and more with a seasonal focus.
During each monthly class, students make shares of medicine for personal, family, and community distribution and become healing advocates in their community. The program also hosts ongoing opportunities for wider community engagement during garden volunteer days and medicine making sessions and will include future speaker series and on-off classes.
Students will leave with medicines they’ve made which will include extras for them to share and the making of additional medicines to support community distribution offerings, widening the reach of these shared learnings. In 2021, Herbal Aid Ed participants distributed over 400 pieces of herbal medicine including salves, teas, glycerites, electuaries, and oxymels to the Germantown community!
Community Outreach
Students leave with medicines they’ve made which include extras for them to share. The making of additional medicines to support community distribution will widen the reach of these shared learnings. In 2021, Herbal Aid Ed participants distributed over 400 pieces of herbal medicine including salves, teas, glycerites, electuaries, and oxymels to the Germantown community!
Herbal Aid Ed 2023 will meet from April through December
2023 Classes
Saturdays: 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM:
April 1st, May 6, June 10th, July 1st, Aug 5th, Sept 2nd Oct 14th, Nov 11th, and Dec 9th
2023 Garden Days
(open to the public)
Wednesdays, 4:00 – 6:00 PM:
April 19th, May 17th, June 21st, July 19th, Aug 16th, Sept 20th, Oct 18th, Nov 15th
Alyssa Schimmel
A community herbalist, licensed massage therapist, gardener, teacher, and forager, she is passionate about sharing knowledge of regional food and medicine in the community. She serves as the course designer and program lead of Many Hands Community Apothecary Herbal Aid Ed at The Farm at Awbury Arboretum, a mutual-aid herbal education program, and community medicine network. Previously serving as the Education Director of The Philadelphia Orchard Project, Alyssa developed the School Orchard Program serving 14 K-12 schools, has collaborated with Awbury Arboretum teaching medicine-making to the Teen Leadership Program, catered seasonal dinners alongside Chef Gail Hinson and taught medicine-making through Wild Foodies. She has also taught at institutions including Swarthmore College, Haverford College, The Village, and more. Her training includes studies through WildGinger Community Herbal Center, Sky House School of Herbal Medicine, Human Path school, Mountain Gardens, and formal study through David Winston’s School of Herbal Medicine.
Questions? Please contact Alyssa at manyhandsapothecary@awbury.org
