August Updates

 Labor Day Weekend is almost upon us and soon we will be packing our backpacks and heading back to school. In the month of August, our volunteers were able to deliver 440 meals and our donations totaled over $2,200. As always, we are so grateful for all the support and kindness we receive. 
As we look ahead toward September, remember that late summer is historically the slowest time of the year for food banks. If you’re doing your back-to-school shopping, consider picking up an extra pack of pencils or juice boxes for donation if you’re able. This can be a financially difficult time for a lot of families and for a child to be well read, they need to be well fed!

Georgetown National Night Out

Thanks to everyone who made Georgetown’s National Night Out a fabulous success! Georgetown Councilwoman Christina Diaz-Malone showed off the fantastic produce that the Juneteenth Community Garden has been yielding and Chef Manny offered up free empanadas to our delighted fair-goers. What a wonderful time meeting new members of the community and celebrating summer together, and we hope to see you all again at our next event!

“Wherever there is a fight so that hungry people may eat, we will be there.”

Chef José Andrés, founder of World Central Kitchen, uses the power of food to heal and strengthen communities through times of crisis and beyond. So it is no wonder we see him today helping the people of New Orleans through the devastating impact of Hurricane Ida. Follow his team HERE as they prepare thousands of meals for those without power, food, or clean water. 

Demand Climate Action Now

This month our friends at Delaware Interfaith Power & Light joined the Sunrise Movement and the Delaware Working Families Party to rally for climate, care, jobs, and justice. Visit their Facebook page to learn more about how you can send a message to our senators to #sealthedeal and pass a $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill to fund clean energy, universal preschool, affordable housing, and other sustainable community investments.

Living Together. Working Together. Sharing Together.

COVID-19 has impacted almost every aspect of our daily lives. It has highlighted and magnified our need for community and for each other. And with this renewed need for social support, it should come as no surprise that alternative housing models are gaining popularity. The North American obsession with single-family housing is not only expensive and ecologically damaging, it’s also incredibly alienating. Can we move forward and create a space that lives in harmony with the Earth, shares resources between community members and supports our children’s growth with healthy and sustainable ideals? The answer is a resounding yes. 

Intentional Communities and their shared values have been around for millennia. Consider the tribal living of early man, sharing the duties of hunting, the responsibilities of child rearing and support of their elder members. Communal living in the service of building a better world began with Pythagoras in 565 BC with a group of vegetarians who found it easier to share their resources when they worked and farmed together. The Mennonites are credited with bringing community living to North America in 1665, but let’s not forget that Native Americans were already practicing sustainability and community living for a very long time before that. The common thread of these communities is this: working together toward the collective and future good. 

Most recently we have seen the rise of a particular type of community, the Ecovillage. Ecovillages do not ascribe to a traditional political or religious affiliation but to the simple idea that it is our duty on this Earth as humans to leave our planet in better shape than we found it. 

“Ecovillages are human-scale, full-featured settlements in which human activities are harmlessly integrated into the natural world in a way that is supportive of healthy human development, and which can be successfully continued into the indefinite future.” 

—Robert and Diane Gilman 
Ecovillages and Sustainable Communities, 1991

Intentional communities built with eco-friendly materials, promoting sustainable ideals, growing and harvesting locally to reduce CO2 emissions, and sharing the collective responsibilities, quickly becomes a welcome change to the isolating, single-use way of life we are used to. With advancements in science and technology, these communities can blend the sociological advantages of communal living, such as childcare and elderly support, with the ecological advantages of shared resources, such as private solar power energy grids and hydroponic farming. Ecovillages can create a lifestyle of equitable access to resources and energy with minimal ecological footprint.

While the design of Ecovillages can take many forms from dormitory style apartments with shared amenities to close proximity free standing homes, the idea that a high quality of life is possible while maintaining a low ecological impact remains the same. Members of Earthaven Ecovillage in Black Mountain, NC like to think of themselves as “a living laboratory and educational seed bank for a sustainable human future.” And all it took was a worldwide pandemic to remind us that man is a social animal. 

Visit Ecovillage.org to learn more about building a regenerative future.

–Bridget Sunday TAPTF Society

Late summer tomatoes are here by the bushel! Garden Gazpacho from Epicurious is a great way to use up whatever the garden gives you.