Beautiful community, we need your support to keep our farm's land and continue our medicine-based mutual aid outreach!

What we do

moonpence farm is a new medicinal herb & flower farm, being built from scratch in the Manzano Mountains of New Mexico. It's home to Serenus Herbs and the Serenus Herb Bank, a mutual aid care network providing historically marginalized communities with free herbal remedies with no questions asked.

Since 2021, with the support of our monthly members, we’ve shared 492 free herbal care packages with Black &/or Indigenous folks via the Serenus Herb Bank! That’s 1,918 lovingly hand-crafted, sustainably packaged herbal remedies mailed out across the so-called U.S. & Canada in just three years. As we've grown, we've begun offering high-quality respirators in our care packages, and have committed to distributing funds to BIPOC mutual aid asks (supporting our community members via cash for their urgent housing & medical needs).

Distribution by year
2022: 104 care packages
2023: 186 care packages / 112 KN95 & N95 masks / $1,285 in direct mutual aid
2024 (so far): 202 care packages / 420 KN95 & N95 masks / $3,578.89 in direct mutual aid

On the home front, we've been ever-so-slowly crawling towards our goal of building a micro farm and homestead with almost no resources - our founders do not come from generational wealth, are disabled & immunocompromised and have been under-employed since the start of the pandemic. We move slowly, at the pace that our bodies and neurodivergent brains allow, and have learned to work with our limitations rather than trying to move at the speed of capitalism. For these reasons and more, moonpence is not yet fully built out, but is getting closer to our goals, day-by-day and with the support of our community.

Our commitment to sustainability is a guiding principal in our work. Previous generations of this land's "owners" have, unfortunately, left these fields and woods littered with piles of burnt trash, construction debris and hazardous old structures. The fields were overgrazed for many years, effectively killing off many of the native plant species. We've worked hard over the last couple of years to clean up the land we are stewarding, to help heal the soil, reintroduce native species and provide sanctuary to visiting animal guests.

Our aim is to strengthen Serenus' sustainability practices and expand the Herb Bank's reach by growing all of the medicinal herbs used in the shop's products and Herb Bank care packages. Currently, the majority of these ingredients are sourced as responsibly as possible from small growers and farms, but it is expensive and not in line with our values to have to buy from farms across the country and sometimes abroad (untold amounts of gas / carbon emissions / petroleum-based packing materials used during shipping). Growing our own medicine allows us to ensure the quality and efficacy of the herbs we send out into the world. Each season we grow a little bit more on our ingredients list, and we've received really incredible feedback from seasoned herbalists & herb-lovers about the quality of the herbs we're growing and processing! Keep an eye out for our small harvests of stinging nettles, milky oats, oat tops, calendula, mullein and more : )

Who we are

moonpence farm was founded by sunday (they/them), a Black Indigenous disabled herbalist, photographer & community organizer from Albuquerque, and their partner max (he/him), a queer Latinx musician & self-taught builder from Los Angeles. sunday's ancestors were shepherds in the 1800s in the same county where moonpence now resides. We're now joined by Kelly (they/them), our new Volunteer Coordinator, who is a queer, nonbinary, white, disabled & chronically ill, Anti-zionist Jewish artist & musician from the PNW.

This October marks a huge milestone - bringing our first paid employee onto the team! Hiring support will allow us to reach our goals faster and more responsibly, while preventing burnout amongst our chronically ill & disabled members. Learn more about our team here.

Why we need your support

We have until summer 2025 to pay off the 40 acres we've built our farm and homestead on. If we are not able to pay off the remainder owed by that date, we will lose our land and everything we've built here so far. There is no Plan B - we absolutely need to meet this goal. Becoming displaced from our home would greatly impact our lives as low-income disabled people, and would completely halt the Serenus Herb Bank's work, leaving dozens of Black and/or Indigenous folks without much-needed herbal remedies.

For years we’ve spent the bulk of our time stuck in a capitalist feedback loop, working for others to make our monthly land payment. Any extra income has gone into the farm and we've lived without many "normal" amenities, like indoor showers, a full kitchen and more. We've mainly relied on monthly memberships (thank you!) and fundraising to cover farm build out.

Every dollar raised here will go straight towards purchasing the land we reside on.

If you would like to send your contribution directly to the escrow company via check, please reach out by email to coordinate this.

Our future

Being relieved of this crushing debt will free up time and resources for building much-needed farm infrastructure. It'll allow us to expand our growing spaces and the variety of medicinal herbs we grow here. Growing more = more herbs to give away to our communities for free! The Herb Bank has consistently upped its output every year, and we intend to continue this pattern. We'll also expand into caring for animals (chickens, goats, bees etc), dive into community programming hosted here on the land and we'll finally, finally, be able to hire and house a much-needed farm manager.

We envision a future where our basic needs are met (i.e. accessible housing), where we do not have to spend 90% of our time working for others in order to make our monthly land payment and can instead, focus all of that energy on our work here. We dream of getting out of survival mode and into creation mode. In addition to building out basic farm infrastructure, we are simultaneously working to build a house and a cabin for our team. We're currently living in a half-indoors-half-outdoors setup, and so much of our days are spent chasing basic creature comforts (imagine not having an indoor shower or kitchen for 3 years!)

Our future is so bright, we have the dedication and vision, but need the resources. We dream of multiple earth homes, of having the infrastructure to house our friends who are experiencing housing insecurity. We aim to host free residencies for Black & Native folks on the land. When we're more stable, we plan to build a covid-safer music studio and commercial-grade kitchen & studio space for Serenus' operations. Hosting small festivals, sharing the land with other plant-lovers, and having the privilege to play, experiment, and (dare we say it), even to REST. These have all been distant dreams, but meeting our fundraising goal will help get us closer to making them reality.

When we meet our fundraising goal, we plan to host a large, covid-safer celebration with camping on the land as a thank-you to our community!

How you can help

Individuals

There are so many ways you can help us reach our goals! A few ideas:

Contribute to this fundraising campaign and ask your loved ones to match your contribution
Sign up for a monthly membership on our site or monthly contributions via Givebutter
Share our fundraising materials on your own social media: sign up here to pick a date in need of coverage
Host your own mini fundraiser in whatever form is accessible to you. Some of our community have hosted yard/clothing sales, benefit shows, and raffles. If you want to organize your own mini fundraiser, feel free to use our fundraising materials
Fill out our volunteer form to offer support in whatever areas you're skilled in

Organizations

We are actively searching for a great fiscal sponsor with shared values. This will open so many doors and allow us to apply for certain types of grants that we're currently ineligible for. If your non-profit may be a good fit, please let us know by emailing moonpencefarm@gmail.com. Thanks for considering us!

Logo design by Ameerah Bad'r

Banner design by Maeve @ochrestar

secure moonpence farm's future!

By moonpence farm

secure moonpence farm's future!

Help us buy our land & ensure the future of MPF + the Serenus Herb Bank