Want to learn more about the practice of low-tech mushroom cultivation, mycoremediation and urban recycling? This internship will give you hands-on experience in these areas. Depending on what you want to learn, your skill set, and what needs to get done, you’ll support spawn production and the research, development and maintenance of ongoing mycoremediation and bioremediation projects from soil remediation to specific contaminant breakdown.
What you’d really be doing: While the outcomes of this work are exciting and important, the actual work involves regularly cleaning buckets, building equipment from recycled materials, gathering from the city’s waste stream, flipping compost, chopping straw, making lids, and reading through scientific articles.
Is it your thing? If this all sounds like something you’d be happy to spend time doing with enthusiasm and humility, please be in touch! There are important tasks for folks of all abilities and backgrounds, and I’d like to encourage folks to apply whether or not you can dig, research, or have knowledge of mushroom cultivation.
Commitment: I’m looking for 1-4 folks who can commit to coming every 2 weeks to for a 4 hour work party, schedule to be figured out based on both of our schedules. It’d be great if you can commit for at least 1 month.
What you get: I commit to making sure that you learn about the processes of mushroom cultivation and remediation in a way that’s meaningful to you, and finding tasks that you don’t hate doing and support you in building skills you’d like to. Interns also get some mushroom spawn and access to my workshops.
If you’re interested: please send Danielle an email at diyfungivictoria@gmail.com with a little bit about why you’re interested and if there are any skills you can offer in particular (ie- patience, building, driving around picking things up, etc).
D.I.Y. Fungi 
Where? 🙂
Ha, great question! I’m based in Victoria, British Columbia. If you don’t live here, you could still support research! 🙂
My name is Leslie McGrath and I am the garden coordinator at the Rainbow kitchen in Esquimault. I don’t drive but have many years gardening experience and harvesting wild mushrooms on the east coast of Canada. I am retired but in good health. I could enthusiastically commit myself to an internship with D.I.Y. Fungi for any reasonable number of hours and for an unlimited length of time. I attended your last mushroom workshop at the Compost centre and have been looking for just such an opportunity since then. I have initiated a composting program at the Rainbow Kitchen and am developing a garden with the full backing of the organization. I will be registering today for the January workshop at the Centre with the view to establishing mushroom beds at the Rainbow Kitchen. Hoping to hear from you,Danielle.