LEI strengthens communities by teaching practical skills and systems thinking for a changing world.
We help people build knowledge, skills, relationships, and confidence to act together and rely less on systems that extract more than they return.
Our work creates real pathways to a healthier Lake Erie region, more resilient communities, and people who know how to take care of themselves and each other.
Workshops that build real skills through practice, not theory.
Hands-on collaborations that strengthen local resilience.
Support for small ventures rooted in reciprocity.
Hands-on learning rooted in place—skills you can use immediately.
Monthly notes on workshops, projects, and opportunities to plug in.
Donate, volunteer, or partner—help build durable local systems.
The Lake Erie Institute began as a project of ecological curiosity — a gathering place for people who believed that reconnecting with the land was part of how we understand ourselves and the world. Early work drew on traditions of ecopsychology, nature-based learning, and community education, inviting people into direct relationship with the Northeast Ohio landscape.
Those roots still matter. But the questions we’re asking have sharpened. The disruptions communities face — economic, ecological, social — aren’t abstractions. They require real knowledge, real relationships, and real systems that can hold when larger ones fail or extract more than they return.
That’s what LEI has grown into: a place where people learn practical skills alongside systems thinking, and where community resilience is the work — not just the aspiration.