Land in Common is excited to be seeking two summer interns to help implement the 2021 Maine Land Share Project. This project is a state-wide, grassroots, mutual aid effort to connect people who want to grow food with people who have land to share. We hope these connections will increase food security during the pandemic and beyond, build solidarity through resource-sharing, and create opportunities for joy and outdoor connection.
Project Overview:
The Maine Land Share Project was created in 2020 by Land in Common, the Resilience Hub, and Presente! Maine in response to the pandemic and recession. The project matches people looking for land to grow food for family or community food security with people who have land to share. We recognize that land is the source of all life, but is unequally distributed, and we are committed to prioritizing land matches for people experiencing land injustice as a result of white supremacy, colonialism, transphobia, and class inequity.
In 2020, through an all-volunteer effort, the Maine Land Share Project connected gardeners with land and garden-support resources at 15 sites across Maine, 80% of which supported BIPOC, trans, and low-income gardeners. Presente! Maine’s land share site has produced hundreds of pounds of fresh food for free community distribution in Portland and Lewiston/Auburn via the Food Brigade.
This year, we’re excited to connect more land seekers to land and to use the project as an organizing opportunity, raising collective consciousness about land justice, and supporting long-term land tenure for frontline communities.
Position Details
Interns will work closely with Project Coordinator, supporting key aspects of the season’s work including resource matching, communications, and documentation. More specifically, tasks will include some combination of the following:
- Assist with gathering the resource needs of food growers (resources can be anything from seeds, to vehicles, to compost, to fencing, to farming advice)
- Manage our resource databases, and coordinate the distribution of resources to land sharing sites
- Track project income/expenses
- Create and distribute content through social media and email newsletters
- Attend weekly meetings with other members of our core project team
Other potential areas of work, depending on intern’s skills and interests, could include:
- Manage an ArcGIS land and resource map
- Develop creative materials to share and uplift the Land Share Project’s work (could include video, photo, audio, etc… we’re open to whatever you’d enjoy making!)
Qualifications
A qualified candidate will have most of the following experiences and skills:
- Dedication to the project’s values and mission
- An understanding of the structural barriers to food security, land justice, and environmental justice
- A strong desire to participant in mutual aid and community organizing
- A commitment to racial and economic justice
- Close ties to Maine communities
- The ability to see complex situations from multiple angles
- Strong interpersonal skills
- Strong organizational skills, and the ability to keep track of many moving parts
- A willingness to call up strangers to talk about our work and ask for donations
- Flexibility to shift roles in response to a changing and evolving project
- Working knowledge of Excel spreadsheets
Optional:
- Working knowledge of ArcGIS
- Working knowledge of WordPress
- Working knowledge of Indesign or other design software
- Experience with photography, videography, oral history recording, writing, or any other method of storytelling
If you are worried you don’t have enough of these qualifications, but you are excited about the work, we urge you to please still apply. Commitment to the work means more to us than your past work experience. We are happy to teach you the skills you need to do the job.
Timing
We’re ideally hoping for interns to join us from early May to late August of 2021, although start and end dates can be flexible to accommodate school schedules. We can offer each Land Share Organizing Intern up to 400 hours of work in total, depending on what your school requires. Weekly schedules are also flexible.
Location
The work is mostly remote. However, if the Land Share Organizing Intern/s have access to transportation and are interested, there may be opportunities to assist with delivering resources to land sharing sites (we will reimburse mileage).
Compensation
We don’t have the funds this year to directly pay student workers, but we will support applicants to ensure you are able to get funding for this work through your school. Please email Project Coordinator, Jesse Saffeir (jesse@landincommon.org) if you need a letter of support, or any other materials from us.
Land Share Organizing Intern Application
If you feel you are a strong candidate after reading the Description above, please respond to the following questions. Send your completed questions, saved as a PDF, along with your resume, to Jesse Saffeir (jesse@landincommon.org) by April 9th 2021. Please email Jesse with any questions.
Personal Information:
Name:
Address:
City / Town:
State:
Phone:
Email:
Application Questions:
- Why are you excited about being a Land Share Organizing Intern for the Maine Land Share Project?
- What skills have your past experiences provided you that make you a strong candidate for this position?
Please address: 1. Your ability to accomplish the tasks of the Land Share Organizing Intern position, and 2. How your experience, education, or skills align with our ideal qualifications. - What do you have to offer this project beyond the requirements we’ve outlined?