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Lost Valley Educational Center

  • Communities

About the Communities

  • Established
  • Ecological
  • Rural

Founding year

  • 1988

What we do

Lost Valley Educational Center is a nonprofit organization founded in 1989 near Eugene, Oregon as an intentional community, permaculture education center, and events facility. Meadowsong Ecovillage – the community of residents (some of whom are staff members) who live full time at Lost Valley – is comprised of about 35 adults and 5 children. We live and work together on 87 beautiful acres of gardens, meadows, forests, and a creek, 18 miles southeast of Eugene, in the foothills of Oregon’s Cascade Mountains.
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Lost Valley Educational Center is looking for six (6) interns to join our intentional community to participate in a 12 week immersive learning internship opportunity.
This is your chance to learn and work alongside some of the Pacific Northwest’s finest system thinkers. This educational opportunity offers front row seats in observing the process, procedure, and our sociocracy-inspired governance systems that have allowed our community to flourish for over 30 years and gain some experience living in community.
We are looking for 15-18 hours per week with a commitment of three months in exchange for tent camping or dormitory-style housing. This internship does not offer financial compensation. Start date: Mid-May (start date for some roles can be flexible)
If accepted into the internship program, you are temporarily joining our Meadowsong Ecovillage community. This gives you an opportunity to practice Nonviolent Communication, and to study how the principles of Permaculture permeate all areas within the community. You get to attend community meetings, learn how to reduce impact on the land and take advantage of the many trails, fruit trees, creek and sauna on our 87-acres property.
Ideal candidates are self-motivated, responsible, open-minded, enthusiastic to learn, passionate and interested in living and sharing with others. Skill requirements depend on the role.
For more information or to apply go to: https://www.lostvalley.org/internship-opportunity
Available Internship Roles:
1 – Land Tender Intern
2 – Administrative Assistant Interns in Bookkeeping and Education
1 – Maintenance Intern
2 – Kitchen Interns
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Our dwellings are rustic cabins, a six-unit apartment, tiny homes, RV sites, private dorm rooms and camping. We are evolving into a Community Land Trust with intentions for constructing new eco-friendly housing. We serve organic, vegetarian meals partly grown in our gardens for dinner each weekday. We govern ourselves collectively using Sociocracy-inspired methods. Residents keep their personal assets and pay their own way for rent, meals and minimal fees. We also have a few work-traders on site at any given time.
Lost Valley is also an event center, hosting retreats and conferences in our dormitories, dining lodge, classrooms and other facilities. We offer education programs in sustainable living skills, including our Holistic Sustainability Semester – a 3-month immersion experience where students earn a Permaculture Design Certification (PDC) and an Ecovillage Design Education (EDE) certificate.
Our year-round Visitor Program offers flexibility and a myriad of experiential options for short to medium-term stays and is an ideal first step to exploring a well established ecovillage and getting to know our community. Most of our land is an undeveloped nature sanctuary with interpretive trails. There are a variety of activities throughout each month, such as meditation, work parties, song circles, discussion groups, movie nights and governance meetings open to observers.
We endeavor to offer the unique gift of balance in ecological responsibility and personal well-being. We hold a deep commitment to authentic, compassionate communication with the functional extended family that we are cultivating. We strive to be creative, caring, embracing of change, eclectic in our approach, and open to diversities in age, race, spirituality, and sexuality.

Our Mission

Lost Valley is a permaculture learning center, educating youth and adults in the practical application of sustainable living skills. We take a holistic approach to sustainability education, engaging students in ecological, social, and personal growth.
Meadowsong Ecovillage provides affordable staff housing, access to land, and facilities for community development in Oregon. We are an intentional community of educators and cultural evolutionaries, committed to creating a life together in a sustainable way.

  • Purpose
  • Ecological
  • Community type
  • Ecovillage
  • Sustainability practices
  • Ecosystem restoration
  • Sustainability education and community engagement
  • Permaculture design
  • Activities
  • Property management
  • Farming
  • Education
  • Experiences
  • Networking

Commemorative dates

  • January 1, 1988
  • Started planning
  • January 1, 1989
  • Started living together
  • 37 Total members
  • Open to new members
  • Open to visitors
Total
60

How to join

Exploring membership ideally begins with arranging a visit to our community. During your visit, you can get a feel for the community, arrange a meeting to learn about housing, costs, and the residency process, and get a Residential Application, if inspired. See our website for more detail.

Basic expectations or agreements for members

Visit our website lostvalley.org, or email vi***@********ey.org.

Primary decision-making authority

  • All Community Members Together

The whole membership decides collectively.

Decision-making process

  • Consent-Based (Sociocracy)

Decisions proceed unless someone has a reasoned objection.

Governance structure

  • Sociocratic/Circle-Based

Organized in circles or domains with distributed authority.

Economic model

  • Independent Finances

Members maintain separate personal finances with minimal sharing.

Economic scenarios for this community

  • There is a one-time fee, investment, or share purchase to join the community separate from accessing housing
  • Members need to pay fees, dues, or similar to live there on a per month or per year basis
  • There is a labor obligation
  • Members typically need to have their own job or other personal source of income to cover their expenses while living in the community?

Additional economic information

Join fee: $50
Regular fees: $500
Labor: Encouraged or suggested (2 hrs/week)
Members with pre-existing debt: allowed
See our website for details about costs: http://lostvalley.org/cost-of-living

Shared resources and amenities that are accessible to everyone in the community

Common House, Garden(s), Greenhouse(s), Library, Workshop, Outbuilding(s), Swimming pond or pool, Outdoor Kitchen, Large Scale Kitchen, Tractor & Farm Equipment, Stage or Auditorium, Fire pit, Swingsets & play areas, Gym or sports area, Internet

Frequency of communal meals

  • Approximately 1 meal per day

Significant food acquisition practices

  • Locally sourced

Dietary restriction

  • People can cook and eat what they want in their own residence

Community activities and engagement

  • School, Educational Institute or Experience
  • Volunteer, Internship, or Apprenticeship, or WWOOF’ing
  • Neighborhood, Community Housing, or Homeowner's Association
  • Organization, Resource, or Network
  • WWOOF'ing, Guest Farming
  • Festivals, Conferences, Events

Substance use culture

  • Substance use occurs primarily at celebrations or ceremonies

Gender composition

  • Roughly balanced (no group over 60%)

Age demographics

  • Family-focused (many children and parents)

Property status

  • Privately owned

Property owner

  • By a Community Land Trust or some other kind of nonprofit

Setting

  • Rural

Countryside locations with significant distance from urban centers.

Community type

  • Ecovillage

    Integrated communities designed around ecological principles with sustainable living practices.

Sustainability approach

  • Ecosystem restoration
  • Sustainability education and community engagement
  • Permaculture design

Land practices in our community

  • The community practices permaculture

Self-produced energy

  • Up to 33%

Energy sources used

  • Photovoltaic Solar

Self-produced food

  • Up to 33%

Local, organic, or fair trade food

  • 33 - 66%

Food systems

  • Community garden
  • Greenhouse / aquaponics
  • Land area size
    87 acres

Guest Book

Written reviews are available for plus members. Click here to upgrade.

Location

  • Oregon, United States

Lost Valley Educational Center

Needs and Offers

Connecting people and communities through an intentional online marketplace

  • Promoted
Need
  • Promoted
Offer
  • Real Estate For Sale
3 weeks ago

Beautiful 3+ Bed, 2.5 Bath Townhome in Established West Emerald CoHousing, Seattle

A rare home is available at West Emerald Cohousing, an established all-ages intentional community in West Seattle. For those considering a move to the Pacific Northwest—or hoping to join a mature community rather than one still in the forming stages—West Emerald offers decades of community life, beautiful gardens, shared resources and a peaceful setting within the city in a convenient location since 1999. This unit has a unique floor plan that is ideal for co-buying, co-living, or for one household. The home itself offers a flexible 3+ bedroom, 2.5 bath layout: Garden-level room with a separate exterior entrance and half bath—ideal for a home office, studio, guest space or client-facing business Main-level bedroom and full bath, laundry, making one-level living possible Open great room with large windows overlooking gardens filled with birdsong Well-designed kitchen with generous storage and pantry Two additional light-filled spacious bedrooms and a full bath upstairs Thoughtfully maintained and updated Located at the end of a common pathway for added privacy and garden views, Just feet from parking, which is out of view West Emerald community amenities include: Common House with gathering and activity spaces Community meals and events Mature gardens and shared outdoor spaces Workshop/maker spaces and bike barn Exercise room EV charging opportunity Excellent Metro access to Downtown Seattle just minutes away Nestled into a dell, it’s Seattle’s best-kept secret South Seattle College and lifelong learning, NW Wine Academy, the Seattle Chinese Garden are nearby, with easy access to Alki Beach, Lincoln Park, magnet schools, ferries, and the shops and restaurants of the West Seattle Junction. 6000 17th Ave SW, Seattle, WA Is a wonderful opportunity to have your own comfortable, private home while becoming part of a vibrant and well-established Seattle all-ages cohousing community. For more information contact the friendly Realtor at 206-579-9066, or at ki**********@**********te.com who will be happy to meet you there or do a facetime tour.
  • Promoted
Offer
  • Communities with Openings
4 months ago

Do you feel called to help co-create a small, newly forming eco-spiritual community?

Old structures are crumbling. New ways of living are calling. We are answering that call. Wild Grace is an eco-spiritual community located in the Sierra foothills 30 minutes from Grass Valley, California. We recently completed new homes for those who feel called to our vision. Currently there are four of us living on this sacred 80 acres of land although we are a hub for an expanded neighborhood community. Many join us weekly for potlucks, expressive dance, Qi Gong, monthly musical gatherings, and seasonal celebrations in our temple, as well as tending to our orchard. We are excited to welcome others to join us on the land who are dedicating their lives to spiritual growth and ready to live in a more focused and intimate heart-centered lifestyle. Might that be you or someone you know? The fundamentals are simple. Spirit. We listen personally and collectively together most mornings, usually starting with a musical offering, a prayer, or a short reading, followed by about 40 minutes of what we call “sacred silence.” Heart Circles. About once a week we gather to share and listen. We are informed by authentic and compassionate communication practices. Nature. The land itself—an 80-acre oasis of field and forest perched above the wild and scenic South Yuba River—calls for our stewardship in the gardens, orchard, greenhouses, and general care. In turn, nature feeds us abundantly, both literally and spiritually. Interbeing. We join with others to share inspiration and connection as we host monthly gatherings of song, story and prayer that draws from the larger community in addition to other events we share with our closer neighbors. As we attend to these fundamentals, Grace flows to and through us—often in “Wild” or unexpected ways. Grace catalyzes through us, but is not something we possess. Because we all are connected, we feel that Grace actively transforms n
Need
  • Communities with Openings
3 weeks ago

Looking for a family-friendly farm, cohousing, or intentional community

This might be a little hard to explain, but I’m going to try. I’m 28, Colombian-American, and I have a seven-year-old daughter. Our life is a little unconventional. I travel, my work is not a normal 9–5, and I’ve realized I don’t want to keep building our life around temporary housing, hired help, and having to recreate a support system everywhere we go. I keep wondering whether there is somewhere we could actually belong. Not necessarily an “intentional community” in the formal sense. It could be a farm, a group of families, cohousing, an intergenerational household, or something I don’t have the language for yet. What I want is for my daughter to grow up around people she really knows. Other children. Adults who become familiar and trusted over time. A place where people notice when someone needs help, where meals or childcare or work sometimes overlap naturally, and where community is more than everyone living near each other. And for myself, I want people I can actually think and build with. I care a lot about spirituality, inner work, land, education, caregiving, and learning how to live differently. But I also care about power and about whether the communities we create reproduce the same things we say we’re trying to get away from. I need to be around people who can acknowledge things like racism, class, gender and systemic inequality without becoming defensive or treating those conversations as inherently divisive. I’ve been developing some of my own thinking around all of this through a framework I call Conscious Colombia, Participating Wisely, and Contemporary Sādhana. A lot of it comes down to a question I keep returning to: how do we become people who can participate in community wisely, while also creating structures that remain accountable and open to correction? I don’t have a fixed location in mind and I’m not looking to rush into anything. I’m really just trying to find the people and places where this kind of life is already being attempted — imperfectly, seriously, in real life. If you’re building something like this, living in something like this, or even asking similar questions, I’d love to talk.
Offer
Need
  • Communities with Openings
3 weeks ago

Looking for Founding Members to Join us

We are looking for someone who lives in Oregon or would like to live in Oregon who wants to help us clean up our new far, property and start building some off grid housing, compost toilets, fireplaces for cooking and building the farm out. We have about 10 acres and several barns, power on site for small wall tents for campers, solar panels we can setup and sooo soo much more to do.  Ideally this person would be around our age, late 20’s -early 30’s, family friendly as we have a daughter and family out sometimes. We are not looking for “anarchist” who see the glass half full and wants to ‘burn down the system’ as we farm and sell to the public, we rely on the system to pay our bills… that is really the only caveat. No hard drugs and no hard political opinions as we prefer to focus on our back-to-the-land culture, not the problem we cannot control outside the farm.  You tired of the noise and want some solitude? To get your hands dirty and build a farm from the ground up with a bunch of like minded people. All I want to do is feed people and have fun while we do it. I don’t want to try and fix the world, just rebuild the one directly around us into an oasis that we can enjoy each and everyday while keeping our moral compass pointing north. Some things to know – We do smoke pot. We like electronic and bass music sometimes and organize festivals and renegades, we still like to have fun, but when on farm, you would never know. We are super easy to be around and just want some friends who can enjoy this farm opportunity and make the most of it with us.  Kids are OK! Pets on a per person basis. Rent is negotiable ($100-300/month) with work trade being mandatory at 4 hours per week. Anything beyond that goes towards rent. Please reach out if interested or have any questions.    Kindest Regards, DJ & Reagan 

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