The seeds of our organization were planted by a natural disaster. A devastating hurricane swept through Central America, triggering landslides that wiped out entire neighborhoods. Amid the chaos, a group of Peace Corps volunteers found themselves in the heart of the recovery effort, rebuilding homes and communities. This experience became a wake-up call. Upon returning to the U.S., these volunteers sought to create their own community, rooted in the lessons of resilience and resourcefulness they had learned abroad.

Inspired by the idea of a cooperative society—one that connects town and country, agriculture and dining, forests and homes—they founded a nonprofit. The name they chose, “Aprovecho,” reflected their commitment to “make best use of” the land that would become their home.

In 1981, the founders raised funds to purchase forty acres near Cottage Grove, Oregon, land that had been clearcut in the 1950s and mismanaged since the forced removal of Native American inhabitants over a century before. As part of the back-to-the-land movement of the 1970s, which included over ten thousand communes across the U.S., these young idealists sought to blend social engagement with sustainable living. They drew inspiration from figures like Scott Nearing, a legendary socialist and WWI war resister who promoted homesteading as a means of sustaining a life of activism and self-sufficiency.

Over the decades, the vision of Aprovecho evolved in unexpected ways. The rural center became a hub for projects ahead of their time. The forest on the property is now home to one of the Pacific Northwest’s longest-running ecological forest stewardship experiments. This initiative has not only produced thousands of board feet of lumber for campus construction but also increased species diversity and maintained a continuous canopy, all while steering the forest towards an old-growth climax successional stage.

Each decade brought new innovations in sustainable construction. In the 1980s, the campus featured Oregon’s first earthen “cob” building. The 1990s saw the creation of the state’s first strawbale-insulated building, in collaboration with the University of Oregon. The 2000s introduced the creative use of double-sided small-diameter poles in the timber frame of the Community Meeting Hall, which ultimately influenced Lane County’s building code. In the 2010s, the campus pioneered an integrated approach to vernacular construction through its Sustainable Shelter Series, focusing on tiny homes.

Aprovecho has also been a fertile ground for numerous initiatives. The “Apro Fava” seed is now available in seed catalogs. KSOW 106.7 FM, which originated within Aprovecho, served as a community radio station for over a decade. The “rocket stove,” developed and refined on our campus, is now endorsed by the U.S. Department of Energy and the World Health Organization, and is featured in the Anarchist Cookbook as a simple, efficient wood-burning cookstove used by millions worldwide.

Beyond these well-known successes, our campus has incubated local nurseries, construction companies, forestry businesses, furniture makers, herbal tea companies, magazines, artisanal pottery ventures, and Permaculture consultancies. Alumni of our programs have gone on to found new nonprofits, take leadership roles in existing organizations, and contribute significantly to the character and resilience of Cottage Grove and beyond.

At its core, each of these projects—and many more—has sought to build community, harmoniously integrate social life with the natural world, and nourish a continuous spirit of experimentation in sustainable living.