Egalitarian Community & Organic Farm With Openings for Member/WWOOF/Visitors!

Hello folks! Acorn is an egalitarian organic farm and community in rural Virginia - we run Southern Exposure Seed Exchange (www.southernexposure.com), a seed business dedicated to preserving heirloom, non-genetically-modified seed and encouraging gardeners to grow their own seed. Our farm is certified organic, as is much of the food we eat. We're in the middle of a season of record sales in our business, and looking forward to the upcoming growing season! Acorn is a member of Worldwide Workers on Organic Farms (WWOOF). Our land is a beautiful 73 acres, bordering a swimming pond and a river. We are close to Twin Oaks Community.

Acorn is truly egalitarian - we share our resources and our labor equally or according to need/ability. We make all decisions by consensus in weekly meetings. We are accepting and inclusive allies of LGB folks and generally non-judgemental on lifestyle (though we are not interested in big drinkers/hard drug users or folks with an ecologically unsustainable way of life). We work hard (though sometimes we have so much fun it doesn't even seem like work), but have a great time almost every night with dinners, art parties, hot tubs, disco nights, drumming, singing, and music making, hysterical laughter, video nights, and a seemingly endless supply of vegan cookies (with non-vegan baking welcome). We even hosted the
Thanksgiving Rainbow Council, which was awesome!

Right now, Acorn has about 20 members, including 4 children (11, 2, 1, and 1 month). We are primarily looking for folks who are interested in staying with us for work exchange/WWOOF for our farming season, with mostly camping available (with full use of our buildings - we're just almost out of rooms!). We are always totally flexible as to dates, length of stay, etc.
Acorn does have at least one space open for a new member, but since it's our only spot, we are giving preference to people who might meet a need in our community. These include: education/homeschooling (primarily to help out with the 11 year old homeschooler), auto repair, alternative (cob, strawbale) building skills, carpentry, plumbing, greywater systems, and accounting. We are also extremely interested in membershipping a family with a 10-13 year old peer for the 11 year old girl who lives here. *This would be especially cool for a single parent!*

If you're interested in coming to Acorn in any capacity described here, or if you have any questions, please respond here or send me an email at truthafrica@yahoo.com! You can also get more information about us and see lots of beautiful pictures of our community and a few of our members at www.ic.org/acorn - we're looking forward to hearing from you!

Peace,
Weaver

 

i just sent you an e-mail and i think you have a beautiful place and a wonderful

concept of life keep up what your doing
all my blessing

 

man, that sounds awesome. The place is beautiful. Wish i could get out there

 

Hey Weaver - is Acorn still shifting to a child-focused model?

 

Hmmm. Well, we're definitely family friendly. There was a push a while back to have something like 6 families with kids move in all at once, so we had a "family camp" thing, but once we had all the kids here at once, it was too much for some members. We are definitely family friendly, and there are 4 kids here right now, but we're probably not going to take more kids under 10 for a while. But we weren't really moving to be child focused so much as family focused and trying to include more children in order to create peer groups for kids.

 

I like your sites and I've heard of SESE before; maybe through here, but I don't remember. You must have internet access there then.

A tip for your interests: If any of your members have a college degree (or I believe an associate's with experience works too, and teaching certificate) you could tutor kids on the internet. This would be an added bonus of access to homeschooling material for your 13 yr. old. If I visit, in June perhaps, I could show you more, or check out www.brainfuse.com. You can use me as a referall if you apply, Rebecca6 is my user name.

That's what I do, and unless I visit specifically on a weekend, I'd need to acess the internet according to my schedule at the time. I'm sure you're not in a cell phone network, and I've chosen to hit the road with that as my means of providing for my family. So I'm asking I guess if I could visit, and if there could be internet there for me to use, a couple hours for a day's visit, I suppose. You can see more about me at the website link.

 

Laughin' Willow,I thought you were living at Acorn now? Guess I got confused. Good to see you around. Peace.

 

I would really be interested in teaching at a commune, especially one like yours. I have included by vita. I hope that is okay.

Pat McCarty
421 W. Gartner Road
Naperville, IL 60540
(630) 355-4183
Email: ptrckmccarty@yahoo.com

Education: Loyola University, 1990-1992 ABD in English (w/ Philosophy)
University of Illinois, 1988-1990 MA English (w/ Philosophy)
University of Texas at Austin, 1982-1985 BS Secondary Education (w/
History and Political Science)

Work Experience:

Distance Education Consultant and Coordinator of Study Abroad in Naperville,
Illinois (1999-2005)
Linked college classrooms via H323 and Web in 12 countries in Europe and Asia
Coordinated and conducted study abroad classes in Europe and Asia (with one
in the USA, in Virginia)
Produced documentaries (more than 60 hours) for use in college classroom and Web
courses
Authored three textbooks on the history of Western thought
Taught course on Homer in Turkey
Taught course on Dickens in London, England
Taught courses on Greek mythology and drama in Greece
Taught courses on the history of philosophy in Scotland, Germany, England,
France, Italy, and Greece

Instructor at University of St. Francis in Joliet, Illinois (1994-1999)
Taught English, philosophy, American and world religions both online and in
classroom

Instructor at Harper [Community College] College in Palatine, Illinois (1990-
1994)
Taught English and philosophy

Courses Taught in the last 15 Years: Three levels of remedial composition,
technical writing, business writing, Composition 101 and 102, American
literature, British literature, world literature, African-American literature, ESL,
mythology, drama, modern novel, history of philosophy, ethics, world religions,
American religion, and Western civilization.

Wrote and Conducted Interviews for Documentaries with philosopher
David Michael Levin of Northwestern University, philosopher Jacques Derrida,
philosopher Richard Stalley of University of Glasgow, author Steven Harrison,
physicist Stephen Hawking.

Professional Conferences attended in more than 10 countries

Enclosed DVD: This is a “rough cut” of a segment of a documentary I produced in
Turkey, France, and Germany. It is “rough” in that the video portion is unedited.
However, it well represents the kind of work I have been doing. I wrote the script
and conducted the interview with author Steven Harrison. The documentary was
on mind and the history of Western thought.

References:

Steven Harrison (best-selling author, international lecturer, frequent subject on
European public TV)
Phone: 303-381-2509
Email: InDialog@aol.com
PO Box 6071
Boulder, CO 80306

Dr. Paula Hlavacek
Phone: 708-583-6228
Email: hlavacekp@sd401.k12.il.us.
7607 W. Cortland Street
Elmwood Park, IL 60707

Dr. Sharon Martin
Phone: 434-386-0133
Email: martins@earthlink.net
325 John’s Creek Road
Madison Heights, VA 24572