Acorn Community has Family/Other Openings!

Hello folks - I rarely get a chance to write on the boards these days, what with taking care of a 7 month old and an 11 year old, doing customer service for our seed business, and being visitor liason for Acorn, but wanted to get a post out!

Acorn Community has openings right now for all kinds of folks, but as a mom and a huge advocate of families in community, my personal interest lies in getting good families out here. We are especially interested in a family with a peer (perhaps 9-13) for our 11 year old girl - particularly a female peer who can hold her own with a lot of talking and energy and who isn't too into mainstream media stuff or being "cool." Those whose kids are not into being "cool" will know what I mean here...lol... My personal feeling is that Acorn would be a fantastic opportunity for a single mom of an older kid - as a former single mom myself, I know how difficult it can be to really want community but be unable to even get accepted for a visitor period at a community!

For those who don't know, Acorn is an egalitarian IC about 8 miles from Twin Oaks, on 74 acres in rural Virginia. We run Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, an heirloom seed business, in addition to our farm.

A few caveats: We have a good relationship with TO, but are very different! We are omnivorous, but the vast majority of our meals are vegan and vegetarian. We are much smaller (around 16 people), and work by formal consensus. We are far less organized and don't assign work, other than a once-every-two-weeks dishwashing shift. We don't have or want tv (we do have internet). We rarely have big parties, and the ones we have tend to be somewhat "nerdy," like our Fried Green Tomato party where we ate them while watching the movie.

The huge upside to all this? The smaller size of Acorn allows for total involvement in all aspects of how the community works - our policies are always developing and are flexible for each personal/family situation. Our seed business was recently voted one of the top 15 seed companies in America by Mother Earth News, and is doing about 3x the business of this time last year - it's an ethical, environmentally sustainable way to earn a living and carry out activism at the same time. We are typically a friendly, laid-back, happy group, and try to address conflict as it occurs. We are also far more open to families than many IC's, and are actually actively seeking peers for our older child!

Acorn is great for people who are independent and want a lot of personal freedom in their lifestyle, who are outgoing and friendly, people who are not much into mainstream media (aside from occasional video watching), who enjoy vegetarian/vegan meals, who can cope with some disorganization, who can work independently and who are looking for a close-knit, smaller, extended-family-type situation rather than a large institutional sort of thing.

Acorn does have a website, but it is currently in the process of being completely overhauled, so if you look at it you can keep in mind that it is not really accurate (especially the members page and the part that says we aren't accepting kids). It's a good overview, though, and has some good pictures if they're working. www.ic.org/acorn - we're also listed in the communities directory at www.ic.org with a more current picture of the members.

If you'd like to contact me, the best way is our community gmail account - acorncommunity@gmail.com - our regular mail has been dumping letters into junk for some reason. Or you can give me a call at 540-894-0595. Or just write back here! Spread the word, please - I am really working to increase the peer scene for our older child in particular, and am excited about welcoming more families into our community!

Peace,
Goody Weaver