Acorn Community Looking for Women and Families!!

Acorn Community has openings right now for women and/or families (due to a gender imbalance, we can't accept more single men at this time), 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. We were recently listed as one of the top 25 seed companies in the US by Mother Earth News!

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, and the community currently does not purchase meat. 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 and a Sunday cleaning party. 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 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 families with children!

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.

Please check out our beautiful new website, with lots of great community pictures: www.acorncommunity.org - it provides a lot more information on the community and the visiting process.

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

 

Oh man, your website is awesome!

After ten minutes of wandering around and looking at pictures and reading what you do there I was ready to ask if I could come live with you guys and I am not even looking for a place to move to!

I love that you get together with the other IC up the river...and I wanna learn how to gather all those seeds!

Bright blessings and I hope you find some compatable people to even out your ratio

 

I am definetely interested. I am moving out of my home aroud april-may 06. I would love to learn more. I am going to look into your website and hopefully get in contact with you and stay in contact until then!

 

This looks wonderful...I wonder how difficult it would be for a Canadian to live there? I am a single mom with two teen daughters ...this looks very cool.

 

Looks lovely...We're a family of 4 w/ a 6 year old daughter and a 3 year old son. Just a few questions if you don't mind?????

Can you give us age ranges of the kids and adults living there?
How about schooling for the children?
Do you all live in one building or seperate housing?
Is all income generated from the businesses (which are wonderful btw) /are you an income sharing community?

Those are the major questions I have at the moment, but would be interested in talking with you further!

 

i saw the article in Mother Earth News

 

*sniff sniff* I wish you were in my state! Lovely website BTW, I love it!

 

Just looked at your entry in the Hip Forums, and we're interested in your views of community. We're two highly skilled people looking for community.

Carmen, mother of three grown children, and grandmother of two, is a lively and energetic 63, and she does sewing, macrame, knitting and beadwork, and she'd love nothing better than having children around to call her "nana" and play games with, as well as teach crafts to. Her years of experience as a single mother taught her much about recycling (clothes, for instance--she has a sewing machine), and living on a slim budget.

Michael, 47, is a mechanic, degreeless mechanical engineer, really, jack of all trades and master of many, inventor and tinkerer extraordinaire, and he loves teaching others his skills. Setting up a micro-hydro or solar system is no problem for him, for instance, and his list of skills, which include all kinds of farm skills, is too long to mention here, but just to whet your appetite, here's just a few: can fix just about anything, from plumbing, electrical, equipment of all sorts, appliances, even computers, and has knowledge of making alternative fuels, and of the converting of equipment to be able to use such. He knows about animal husbandry, organic gardening, carpentry, and has most of the tools and equipment needed for this.

We live in a 30-foot motor home, fully self-contained and then some, and would like to continue to do so, and we also have many other resources to share with a community, such as a generator, lots and lots of hardware, tools, computer, sewing machine, and last but not least, lots of information and knowledge concerning all of the above.

We've long been looking for a community that could use our skills, and needless to say, we're interested in a long-term situation, though we're willing to give any new situation a year and a day probation period. We're progressive people with no religious affiliation, though we consider ourselves spiritual, and we have a healthy respect for the planet, preferring to tread lightly on it, and egalitarianism and justice, not rule of law, is what we prefer. We have lots of letters of reference we're willing to share upon request.

We've been partners for fifteen years. Carmen's on SSI, and Michael's presently self-employed. We'd like to come visit this spring/summer, at your convenience. Our email address is michaangevi@aol.com, and we have a phone as well, 530 365 3446.

 

Hi, Zoomie told me about you guys, and I checked out your web page and emailed you, then I came here and found your post. Hope to hear from you soon!

 

Are you still seeking new female members?

 

I'm a single male so inellligable but I was looking at your sight and noticed that it said most of your meals are vegetarian since you don't buy meat. Do you guys not hunt?? 74 acres is plenty and with the gardens and such there should be plenty of dear spelunking around... and if you not into firearms there are always bows... and if you don't want to buy a bow you could always learn how to make one, it's really not difficult... and if you don't like the idea of shooting something there are always traps, of which many are actually pretty humane...

sorry, just curious. but it seems to me on 74 acres meat should be in abundance.

 

yeah, her post did said they eat meat but do not buy it and it's seldom consumed.

 

you know if they do not want to use traps ...they could bore the animals to death with bad jokes....just a thought

 

Could that possibly mean that some of the members are omnivores but as a group they don't purchase or consume meat because it's easier to meet everyone's needs than preparing separate meals for the omnivorous and vegetarian members?

 

I did catch that they do eat meat but don't buy it... i was just saying on that many acres i would think meat would be a staple... as for cooking seperate meals for people with different diets... not much extra preperation in throwing a rabit on the grill and just leaving more tofu for the vegetarians.