Hello friends!
Spring of 2026 brings some exciting updates for the St. Spyridon center. Our focus of March and April has been preparing the property for retreats and workshops, which will be a launching place for our formation, evangelization, and education initiatives at the St. Spyridon Center. The goal is to host our first retreats by the end of the summer, but we still have a lot of prep work to do before we can commit to any date!
We hosted two work days which turned out to be both community building and productive. We were able to continue to clean up the land from previous ownership (lots of trash), and clean out the garage which, once simple renovations are finished, will act as a gathering space (refectory, classroom, chapel, etc.) for the retreats and workshops. We were able to accomplish so much with extra help! And there is MUCH more to be done, so we will definitely be hosting other work days this summer. Shoot us an email or send us a message below if you are interested in coming to help out!
Here are some fun pics:
It has been such a joy to invite people into this mission with us by inviting them to work alongside the St. Spyridon team. Seeing the joy, laughter, and hard work these participants put in is the vision of our mission coming to life!
We also hosted an information night for families in the area to learn more about what we are doing here and how they can get involved. While they were here Matt, having finished the first phase of the new permaculture chicken coop, recruited help to carry it around the house to the chicken yard. We hope to provide as much food as possible from our own property for future events from our own chickens and garden. This coop was specially designed by Matt after lots of research and will be a great tool for teaching CPR principles! The goal of this chicken coop is for it to be self-watering, self-heating, and reduce feed costs by 80% or more. It will also, ideally, generate one cubic yard of compost every 1-2 weeks in the warm months. We can’t wait to share more about this in the future!
Lastly, we prepped the garden for planting using the instant garden method of manure, cardboard, and wood chips. It is SO SIMPLE, anyone could do it! Also check out the documentary Back to Eden Gardening so you can start your own garden for now or the future!
We can’t wait for this Pennsylvania “spring” to finally give us warm enough weather to plant the seedlings we’ve started! We are excited to experiment with lots of companion planting around our garden. These plants will help each other in various ways, either by bringing in pollinators and other beneficial insects (like ones that can eat the other insects feeding off of our plants!). Some plants (like legumes) “fix” nitrogen into the soil, which may benefit surrounding plants that usually need extra nitrogen (since Nitrogen leaves the soil so quickly). This year we chose to use a garden planner online to really map out what/where we wanted to grow. Here’s what we are thinking so you can get an idea of our companion plants!
Once you start working with the land and inviting others into it, it is absolutely incredible to see firsthand the abundance of God’s resources! Thank you all for journeying with us. Please keep us in your prayers and let us know how we can pray for you. Glory to Jesus Christ!
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St. Spyridon Center 
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