HWB Richmond, VA (Wisconsin)
HWB is hosting a series of HWB Chapter Features so you can get to know a little bit more about HWB Chapters and their Coordinators as well as find out what Chapters do, and how they are working in their communities.
HWB Richmond VA Coordinator: Laura Baum
We asked Laura a few questions about her Chapter, experiences, and how she works in her community.
Tell us a bit about yourself and herbalism in your life:
I am the founder and organizer of Richmond Herbalism Guild founded in February 2016 to be an epicenter for local herbalism in Richmond Virginia. Working with herbs through organizing with others has been a tremendous learning experience. I have been an HWB Coordinator since March 2018.
Tell us about your Chapter:
We follow the guidelines to meet at least once quarterly so that we don't swamp ourselves with meetings. We have had success with doing a long meeting once quarterly with breakfast and guest practitioners to come to teach us new skills and we are planning a fall training series on topics such as listening skills, de-escalation strategies, urban food justice, and overdose prevention. We are using materials provided by HWB and also plugging into local agencies to do these trainings as they relate to the work that needs to be done here in our city. We keep sign-in sheets for our meetings.
Tell us a little about any upcoming Chapter activities or events you are hosting:
We are currently working on creating our own individualized working sets of summer formulas for general public dispensing. These formulas are agreed on by everyone through email and in-person meeting. At our last meeting, we created our own vision statement which we will introduce to the public at a planned forum on Plant Sustainability with Dr. Susan Leopold executive director of United Plant Savers June 13th here in RVA. We will be introducing our HWB team and making our first public statement of our intention to the community at the event.
