Heaven on Earth

In october and november we will be harvesting the olives to make olive oil. You are welcome to give us a hand.

Welcome to our profile. We are Trente and Filip, an American/Belgian couple retired and young of heart and spirit building a holistic community on the slopes of mount Etna Volcano. We are welcoming brave hearts for longer stays especially from october till april. Most of the work involves clearing the land, weeding and taking care of the vegetable garden

The property is around 15 ha (150.000sqm, 40+ acres) on terraced slopes with dry stone rock walls (without cement) on the Etna volcano and facing the Ionian sea and the mainland Calabria. The place is 1 km form Presa, a small town with 80 inhabitants, and 3 km from Piedemonte Etneo, where you can find more things to do. You will either be housed in the villa or in one of the tiny houses on the property. Depending on the number of volunteers you will have your own bedroom or share it with other volunteers.

Please skip if :
* you are from South America and looking for a place to have residence waiting for your paperwork to come through. You ware welcome, but we don't provide residency nor invitation letters.
* you are hoping to learn Italian. Main conversation is in English. Our Italian sucks
* you have physical problems. You need to be physically strong, so if you have back problems or any other state of mind that disables you from doing physical work, please skip.
* you have heavy emotional problems. We are not qualified as your shrink, nor parents.
* you only have a week to come over. Minimum stay is three weeks. I very much welcome volunteers who are looking for a long term stay, especially during the winter months. However I evaluate every week the situation and only continue when both of us are happy with each others company/work.
* you don't have travel insurance.
* you are looking for a cheap hotel

We are looking for physically strong people who are not afraid of working hard. Would you like to live in a community based environment where you help realizing a dream, then this is for you. Apart from farm help required there is also construction and renovation tasks. I am are restoring an 18th century Palmento (wine makery). So if you love a challenge and nature, there is plenty of indoor and outdoor work. I am looking for help all year round, especially during the months of harvest : September, October and November. I welcome all those who enjoy working whether outdoors or in nature with a joyful passion.

Looking forward meeting you!

We live in a community on the property with several people in eco tiny houses, villas, campers and tents. We share meals and work and good conversations. Here is an example of the works that we do : * helping pruning the olive trees (taking away the branches and burn them) (nov-dec-jan-feb) * helping pruning the vines (taking away the branches and burn them)(jan-feb-mar)* * helping building dry stone walls in the fields * weeding the garden * cleaning out the pool and preparing for spring/summer (april-may) * spraying the olive trees with bio products (feb march) * painting walls, doors and fences inside and outside * cleaning up ashes from the volcano Accomodation : I provide accomodation in a 4 bedroom villa where you will have your own room or share it, depending on the number of volunteers we have at that time. You live, cook, clean together and there is a common living space where in the evening you can socialize with each other. We don't provide TV. We mainly eat vegetarian, but don't mind the exception once in a while. We provide basic food, mostly organic. We don't provide alcohol, meat, fish, sweets, soda's. So if you are in need of any of those, you have to provide for them yourselves. We share daily lunch and sometimes dinner with you and work together. Sometimes I will take you on a trip to the volcano, beach or alcantara river. This depends on how long you stay with us and how good we get along. If you come october/november we will harvest olives and you will be able to experience the proces from 'olive on the tree' to 'extra pure virgin olive oil'. Presa is a small village (80 inhabitants) and is 2 km away. Piedemonte is a bit bigger (3000 inhabitants) and 4 km away.