Montague Commoners

Our History

Montague Commoners was founded in 2021 by a group of local foragers and permaculture gardeners who wanted to collaborate on preserving and sharing their harvests. Since then, we’ve been building through iteration: we try something, we pay close attention to what works and what doesn’t, and we use that information to try again.

  • In 2022:
    • We held our first community sugarbush and made about a gallon of maple syrup.
    • We partnered with the White Lake Climate Action Council for a series of workshops on biochar production and carbon sequestration.
    • We printed and distributed suicide-prevention zines from Project LETS.
    • We designed, printed and distributed monthly planners with local foraging and community event information incorporated into them.
    • We held weekly audiobook-and-crafting gatherings to read Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower together.
    • We started experimenting with acorn harvesting and processing on a small scale
  • In 2023:
    • We started a Facebook group to start reaching out to the wider community.
    • We partnered with the White Lake Community Library on our community sugarbush, adding a talk at the library and a distribution of maple tapping supplies.
    • We partnered with the Muskegon Conservation District on a Foraging 101 workshop, as well as a keynote presentation on acorn foraging at their annual meeting
    • We figured out a really cool way to bundle kindling
    • We inoculated some felled trees at Treespeaker Woods with mushroom spawn to make our first mushroom totems
    • We held community canning days for peaches and tomatoes
    • We held our first public Acorn October foraging and processing events
  • In 2024:
    • We held the community sugarbush at the Trailway Campground for the first time, making it easier to open it up to public participation
    • We partnered with the Conservation District again to present a Foraging 102 workshop
    • We sent out our first issue of the Montague Commoner newsletter to residents of the city of Montague
    • We partnered with Heartbeet Farm on a community mushroom-log inoculation day
    • We held a series of Firewood Friday events at Treespeaker Woods to prepare firewood for the next sugarbush
    • We partnered with Harm Reduction MI to distribute more than 30 (and counting) Narcan kits for opioid overdose prevention
    • We started setting up this website
    • We launched our community preparedness initiative