Springhouse

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Springhouse Springhouse is an intergenerational, vitality-centered learning community located in Floyd, Virginia

The Springhouse community envisions a world where all life thrives. We believe that taking care of life, one person at a time, can eventually bring the larger culture we live in back to health. Springhouse practices and shares the Sourced Design principles: take care of vulnerability, cultivate personhood, build beloved community, learn from the Earth, and love and serve others. We practice the design to create a culture that takes care of Life through education, media, and a global network. Springhouse is supported by the contributions of its community members, and those who support our shared vision. No one is turned away from our offerings for a lack of funds. The Springhouse campus is located in the Appalachian mountains of southwest Virginia on unceded land originally stewarded by the Yesah (also known as Tutelo-Saponi) and Occaneechi Peoples. We honor the Monacan Nation, who hold federal recognition and are present in this region today. We acknowledge our inheritance in this place, at this time - both how the wisdom we teach has been passed down through many teachers and traditions before us; and how we benefit today from legacies of oppression. To move toward living in a world where all life thrives, we commit to facing the injustices of the dominant culture as an ongoing part of our curriculum. We commit to core values of connection, trust, creativity, resiliency, integrity, and individuality as Values in Action that take care of life in ourselves, each other, and the Earth. We practice Sourced Design in our community, and gratefully share these principles with others who seek to take care of life in our world.

Week in Review:
🍂 Springhouse teens and adults drove to Killam’s Point in Branford, CT this week for an epic seaside adv...
10/10/2026

Week in Review:

🍂 Springhouse teens and adults drove to Killam’s Point in Branford, CT this week for an epic seaside adventure.

🥗 We made most of our food before the trip, so we enjoyed healthy, affordable, local meals made to our ecological standards.

⚓ We spent a day at Mystic Seaport Museum with tall ships, old streets, and salt air. 

🎶 We joined a shape note singing in New Haven and raised our voices in four-part harmony.

🎓 Jenny Finn took part in the Annual John Moriarty Lecture at Sacred Heart University, where she and SHU’s Charlie Gillespie explored learning communities, the hedge school, and John Moriarty’s Slí na Fírinne. Deep gratitude to Sacred Heart University and the Center for Irish Studies for hosting.

🍽️ We stopped for dinner with Granny at Buckley’s Tavern in Centreville, Delaware, once the town blacksmith’s shop. In New Haven, we ate at Pepe’s Pizza, open for 100+ years in a town famous for its pies.

🍎 Meanwhile, back on campus, our middle school cohort served their community at Plenty and Living Light River Studio, tried aerial yoga at In Balance In Balance Yoga and visited the VT Center for the Arts. They also made applesauce and apple butter with Grandma Betty, carved pumpkins with Suz, enjoyed a sound bath with Jack, and made bookmarks and ice cream for fun.

It was an honor for Springhouse to take part in the Annual John Moriarty Lecture, part of the Human Journey Colloquia Se...
10/06/2026

It was an honor for Springhouse to take part in the Annual John Moriarty Lecture, part of the Human Journey Colloquia Series, with a conversation titled Our Sheltering Mythology: On Learning Communities, the Hedge School, and John Moriarty’s Slí na Fírinne. 

Springhouse’s founder, Jenny Finn Jenny Brady Finn joined SHU’s Charlie Gillespie, associate professor of Catholic Studies and inaugural director of the Pioneer Journey, in the Narthex of the Chapel of the Holy Spirit. Together they explored what it means to build learning communities rooted in relationship, farming, art, and the seasonal rhythms of the Earth, and how the old Irish hedge school tradition and Moriarty’s vision still have something to teach us.

Deep gratitude to Sacred Heart University and the Center for Irish Studies for hosting, and to everyone who came to listen and think alongside us.





Week in Review: 🥫 We spent weeks preparing food for our upcoming trip to stay true to our values of eating as locally as...
10/02/2026

Week in Review:

🥫 We spent weeks preparing food for our upcoming trip to stay true to our values of eating as locally as possible. Springhouse families and farms contributed produce, and we canned dilly beans, froze soups, canned salsa, and baked 8 loaves of bread in the bread oven!

🎻 Music abounded at Springhouse this week! We loved watching Jenny and Ian learn fiddle together, practicing throughout the day.

🌿 Our Community Learning Cohort kicked off new service project collaborations, weeding at the June Bug Center and sorting donations at Angels in the Attic. Thank you to Naomi Crew and Mother’s Child Farm for donating thyme and asters for our project at June Bug! The June Bug Center

🐝 We participated in Spikenard’s “Learning from the Bees” conference, creating an immersive experience for participants with Skyler Locke. Many hands came together to create hand-printed hive murals.

💃 We celebrated alongside Juan Pablo and his wife Deirdre, who hosted Floyd CARE’s Celebrando la Cultura Hispana. It was a beautiful event! FloydCARE

📖 We made 100 copies of a wee book on Learning for Cultural Renewal to bring with us on our trip. It was typeset and letterpress printed, with a beautiful cover lino-printed by Ambrose. We’re excited to share them at Sacred Heart University on October 6, where Springhouse’s Jenny Finn, along with Charles Gillespie and Abby Bender, will explore learning communities, the Irish hedge school, and John Moriarty’s Slí na Fírinne.

🎓 Springhouse alumni visited to share about their experience working on a multi-media project with Spikenard this past weekend. They also shared what it’s been like as Springhouse graduates navigating life in Richmond.

We’re thinking about starting an Irish music jam at Springhouse—a welcoming, informal gathering for anyone who loves Iri...
09/30/2026

We’re thinking about starting an Irish music jam at Springhouse—a welcoming, informal gathering for anyone who loves Irish traditional music, whether you’re an experienced player, just learning, or simply want to listen. Fiddle, flute, guitar, singing, bodhrán, and more. Come share tunes, learn from one another, and enjoy the music together.

Interested? Send us a message or comment below! We’d love to hear from you and find a good time to gather.

Most of us have learned to adapt to a culture that is increasingly disconnected from the conditions that allow life to t...
09/29/2026

Most of us have learned to adapt to a culture that is increasingly disconnected from the conditions that allow life to thrive. We have inherited ways of thinking and living that often separate us from ourselves, one another, our communities, and the Earth. We now live with the consequences of this separation: addiction, loneliness, su***de, racism and mass incarceration, poverty, the climate crisis, globalization, and systems that perpetuate inequity and the status quo.

If we are to participate in creating a world where all life thrives, we cannot continue to rely on the same patterns that created these conditions. We must learn new ways of living, ways that restore relationships, honor the dignity and uniqueness of each person, and bring us into greater alignment with the regenerative power of life itself.

But learning new ways of living takes an enormous amount of support.

Thankfully, I woke up at a young age to ways of living that were detrimental to my health and well-being. Since then, it has been the support of communities, mentors, new practices, and places to practice that have helped me stay on a more vital path.

I have come to understand that we don't simply need to know that another way is possible. We need places where we can learn, practice, struggle, change, and experience that way of living together.

This is a large part of why I co-founded Springhouse.

~ Jenny, Springhouse Executive Director

Photos: Many hands make light work. Springhouse staff gather monthly at one another’s homes to help with projects, followed by a shared meal.

Week in Review:🌽 We’re loving harvest season and its bounty of basil, tomatoes, potatoes, green beans, and okra! We’ve b...
09/25/2026

Week in Review:

🌽 We’re loving harvest season and its bounty of basil, tomatoes, potatoes, green beans, and okra! We’ve been taking advantage of it all by learning how to preserve and can our own food. Thank you to all our community partners and families for donating food!

🌱 We started the fall season in the garden by preparing the soil for autumn and winter cover crops and cutting back our summer cover crop, with help from Mark and community members.

🐟 We’re grateful for Master Naturalist Michael Williams and herbologist Mary Lu, who taught us about aquatic life in the Little River. We also learned about native species, how to identify bird calls, and that mullein has many medicinal properties.

🎸 Musician Luke Wallace came for a visit! We learned some of his songs, wrote a few of our own, and sang some of our classics together with him. Thank you, Luke, for a wonderful song-filled day!

🍅 The Community Learning Class visited Plenty! to begin their semester-long service work experience. They helped fill orders, harvest tomatoes, and check out an herb garden.

🎻 Dulcimer lessons at The Handmade Music School continue to be a weekly hit! We even put some records on the jukebox in the background.

🥁 Some of us went to see Juan Pablo at Rising Silo’s Traditional Irish jam. It was so fun watching him play the bodhrán!

🔨 Each week we take care of our space together as a community, learning while we build, farm, cook, and print. Right now we’re building a deck, picking up skills with tools, measurement, and design along the way.

🍁 The staff welcomed fall this week by spending time out in the woods.

🌧️ On a rainy day this week, we moved our athletic time into the Great Hall. We adapt and move as a community, whatever the weather brings.

09/25/2026

Thank you Luke Luke Wallace for filling our halls with music. 🎶

Week in Review: 🍅 We canned 18 pints of salsa this week using produce donated from our families’ gardens and local farms...
09/18/2026

Week in Review:

🍅 We canned 18 pints of salsa this week using produce donated from our families’ gardens and local farms! We’re still in the early stages of our farm, but we’re excited to start eating more local food together. Thanks to Springhouse grandma Betty for leading the effort!

🎶 An impromptu jam broke out in the Great Hall.

🥾 Our community learning crew took a short hike and had their first dulcimer lesson with Handmade Music School.

⛰️ We hiked to Cascade Falls!

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 We wrapped up our second week welcoming the teens back to Springhouse.

What you can plan is too small for you to live.What you can live wholeheartedly will make plans enoughfor the vitality h...
09/15/2026

What you can plan is too small for you to live.
What you can live wholeheartedly will make plans enough
for the vitality hidden in your sleep. 
~ David Whyte

Jenny’s September Letter:

Dear Springhouse community, 

I had an experience at my oncologist’s office that I wanted to share with you.

I love my oncologist. And I love the people who work with her. This is not personal. It is about what happens when systems and institutions slowly become organized around something other than life.

As I sat in the room waiting for my doctor, the nurse came in to take my vitals. As she took my blood pressure, she asked me the usual questions—the ones they are required to ask. As she finished up, she inquired, “Can you just go home and rest now?” I said, “Nope. I am going back to my work that I love. I am excited.” She stopped and looked at me with a blank stare. After a long pause, she asked through a look of surprise, “Oh, are you being sarcastic?”

Read all of Jenny’s letter in the bio link.

Week in Review:

🥞Our first day of school tradition is making breakfast together as a community! Students helped cook fl...
09/11/2026

Week in Review:

🥞Our first day of school tradition is making breakfast together as a community! Students helped cook flapjacks on the griddle using locally grown and milled wheat (thank you, Tom Maxey!) and baked bread in our clay oven.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Our youngest learners loved welcoming the teens back this week!

🐝 Springhouse spent the day at Spikenard Honeybee Sanctuary on Thursday. We’re so grateful for the care and ecological stewardship they bring to the land, supporting bees and pollinators of all kinds!

🌾 We spent time together as an intergeneration learning community on the farm and in the print shop, dreaming up what we’ll make together this season.

🍀 We picked out a photo from our adult Ireland pilgrimage to hang in our staff meeting space. We’re still carrying so much inspiration from that trip this summer, and it keeps shaping how we live out our vision and mission.

Address

144 Silver Maple Lane
Pilot, VA
24138

Telephone

+15406514673

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