About Ahimsa Village

Member School of Living

Introduction

Ahimsa Village is a newly forming intentional community near State College, Pennsylvania. We currently have three core members and a growing number of supporters. Ahimsa Village consists of residential and nonresidential members, an education center, and small business enterprises. Activities include agroforestry; organic farming; holistic therapy program for at-risk young people; a “green living” summer camp; and workshops and classes on sustainable systems. The living environment is both vegetarian and ecologically friendly. Ahimsa Village is part of a 323-acre School of Living community land trust.

Mission

Ahimsa Village is an evolving permaculture demonstration site and community resource center promoting resilient living, learning, and communication.

Vision Statement

Ahimsa refers to the practice of causing no intentional harm to others through thought, speech, or action. Our vision is to create a space that exemplifies the joyfulness of life while serving as an educational center for sustainable and compassionate living. We strive to develop functional and resilient ecological systems that support living in the midst of change.

Core Values

Compassionate living with all beings.
Stewardship of nature using permaculture systems
Education and empowerment
Model of positive change

Goals

The goals of the Ahimsa Village are to:

Develop compassionate communication skills.
Serve as a local and regional resource and educational center that demonstrates alternative options to the mainstream culture.
Provide holistic learning opportunities for all ages.
Develop and utilize resilient social, environmental and economic systems.
Develop an organic farm program that provides food for Ahimsa Village and the local community.
Develop small green businesses to provide income for members and training opportunities for others.
Interact, collaborate and develop partnerships with the local community and region.

Tagline

Learning - community - sustainability

Logo

Our logo was conceptualized by Kelle Kersten, Jackie Bonomo, Greg Martin, and Bob Flatley and designed by Chanin Walsh. It features a Witch Hazel blossom. This flower was chosen for a number of reasons. Witch Hazel is commonly found on the Ahimsa property. In addition, Witch Hazel is subsequently the last flower and first flower to bloom of the year. It blooms over the winter. Our hope is that Ahimsa will come to represent a light, a blossom, during the transition period we are living in as humanity and all the life we impact struggle to find a new way to live in a new world.

Note: Mission, Vision, Values, Goals, Tagline revised 11-27-2007

Structure

Ahimsa Education Committee

The Ahimsa Education Committee (AEC) of the School of Living will be engaged in coordinating and overseeing the nonprofit activities of Ahimsa Village Community. These activities will include but are not limited to educational programs, workshops, classes, outings, etc that support the mission of Ahimsa Village and the School of Living. This committee will have fiduciary responsibility within the framework of the School of Living for donations, grants or contributions made to Ahimsa Village for the purpose of furthering the educational mission of the organization.
Note: Committee approved by School of Living Board - April 29, 2007

AEC Members
Barbara Anderson
Frank Higdon
Bob Flatley, Chair
Robert Forsberg
Kelle Kersten
Sunny Rehler
Ann Wilken

Limited Liability Company

The land equity of Ahimsa Village is held by a PA Limited Liability Company (LLC). This is a convenient structure for holding title holding and development. It provides a structure for members to have equity in Ahimsa Village and benefit from any revenues that AV may generate. The LLC offers the corporate advantages of limited personal liability and also allows for decision making to be connected to ownership, one share, one voice. All the profits and losses are passed through to the owners for tax purposes so the company is not taxed directly, rather the owners claim profit and losses on their own taxes. It allows for outside investors (often referred to as "members", rather than "shareholders"). This allows non-profits, trusts, other partnerships or corporations to invest in the development, with all the members having whatever level of decision-making the group decides. So for example, investors may be limited to voting only on expenditures exceeding a certain dollar amount, so the day to day decision making could be restricted to the sub-group of residents. However, all members would have limited liability.

School of Living

The School of Living (SOL) is a nonprofit, educational organization that was founded by Dr. Ralph Borsodi, an economist, in 1934. The mission of the SOL is to teach people about the philosophy, practices and principles of living that are self-empowering for individuals within the general aim of establishing decentralized, ecologically-sound, self-governed and humane communities. All its resources, but most specifically the land it holds in trust, are held in responsible stewardship for present and future generations.

SOL is actively engaged in: community land trust, intentional community support, permaculture, ecological use of resources, human scale and local self reliance, appropriate technology, alternative education, consensus decision making, non-exploitive banking, and alternative currency. SOL is a regional organization and operates community land trusts in PA, MD, and VA. More information available at www.schoolofliving.org.

Intentional Community

Intentional communities have been in existence for thousands of years. In essence, an intentional community is a group of people coming together in a place they create to live in some particular way. The variety of intentional communities is nearly infinite: some are religious, some are not; politics run the gamut; they are large and small, rural and urban, ecologically minded and materialistic. They include monasteries, communes, anarchic squatter houses, cooperative housing, co-housing, kibbutzim, Christian activist communities, Shaker communities, and many other kinds of groups.[1]

AV will be a small intentional community of 3-4 households. Community members will participate in the service outreach programs and eco-business enterprises of Ahimsa Village. The land will be owned by the School of Living land trust while homes and improvements will be owned by the individual members. However since Ahimsa Village is purchasing an equity lease from the SOL, part of the membership will involve purchasing equity in the land so that this expense is distributed equally. An equity lease means that Ahimsa Village will have equity in the land that it uses and will not be subject to annual rent fees from the land trust. Members decide how the land will be used within the ecological guidelines of the SOL. Decisions will be made by modified consensus. Modified consensus combines a consensus building process with a voting process to make decisions. The voting process is only used when consensus cannot be reached. Usually the group does not need to resort to a vote to make a decision.

Community Land Trust

AV is located in a community land trust. “The land in a CLT is held in trust by a democratically-governed group, while individuals own the improvements created by their own labor and investment. Through an inheritable and renewable 99 year lease, the trust removes land from the speculative market and facilitates multiple uses such as affordable housing, agriculture, and open space preservation.”[2]

To learn more about the history and purpose of CLTs read David Harper's excellent article in the Summer 2007 issue of the Land Trust Alliance. David is a member of the School of Living board.

[1] Reid, Luc. “What is an intentional community?” Meadowdance. 23 April 1999. <http://www.meadowdance.org/basics.htm>

[2] “Community Land Trusts” E.F. Schumacher Society. 17 May 2004. <http://www.schumachersociety.org/frameset_land.html>

Philosophy

Bob and Kelle's Major influences

Helen and Scott Nearing - http://www.goodlife.org/
Peace Pilgrim - http://www.peacepilgrim.com/
Buddhism - http://nittanydharma.org/o_an/information.html
Gandhi - http://www.mkgandhi.org/
Bo Lozoff of the Human Kindness Foundation - http://www.humankindness.org/
Vegetarianism - http://www.vrg.org/index.htm

Continuum Concept - Jean Liedloff - http://www.continuum-concept.org/

Ralph Borsodi and Mildred Loomis - http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/loomis_borsodi_bio.html

Daniel Quinn - http://www.ishmael.org/welcome.cfm

Decentralism - http://www.schumachersociety.org/about/decentralism.html

Permaculture - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture

Current Members

Ahimsa Village currently has three members:

Bob Flatley is a long-time SOL member, chair of the local Sierra Club group, and a librarian at Kutztown University. He is also a founding member of the Mid-Atlantic Renewable Energy Association (MAREA) and helped organize the first PA Renewable Energy and Sustainable Living Festival. His interests include environmental and social justice, vegetarianism and animal welfare, renewable energy and sustainable living.

Contact info: 814-355-0850, info@ahimsavillage.org

Kelle Kersten has over 5 years of experience working with troubled kids and teens. She worked at a “boys camp” in the mountains of western Maryland and worked at a residential facility for troubled pre-adolescent boys near Allentown where she coordinated a garden therapy program with the Rodale Institute. In addition, Kelle has over 10 years experience as an organic farmer. She is an organic farm inspector and currently has a small CSA (community supported agriculture) farm. Her interests include working with kids, sustainable living/homesteading, veganic farming, animal rights, and environmental activism.

Contact info: 814-355-0850, magicjubilee@yahoo.com

Greg Martin: Born a Pennsylvania native, dehumidified in the Silicon Valley, and currently transplanted among the Santa Cruz Mountain Redwoods, brings a practical perspective to sustainable living, intentional communities, and spiritual well being. Greg didn't know he grew up with organic gardening and composting practices, as that was just was just the way the rents did things to grow good veggies. Needing to make some money for educational pursuits, Greg found himself doing historic house restoration (including building a log house and adzing barn beams) in Bucks County, PA throughout high school and college. Greg didn't plan on living off-the-grid and learning about solar energy and green home design, so thank goodness the misguided Y2k trepidation in the Bay Area forced him to move to the mountains. Faced with rainy winters, water erosion, and animals like deer and gophers, Greg had to learn a bit about retaining walls, storm water management, and native plant landscaping and gardening techniques. In this somewhat remote and private area, the concept of a close-nit community and neighborly collaboration took on a meaning way beyond the suburban sprawl of ticky tacky boxes, so Greg was involved in community organization from practical road maintenance, emergency escape planning, neighborhood mediation, to community events (like book clubs, pear and grape picking, and seasonal astronomy talks by SETI astronomers and Native Americans). All said and not yet done, Greg is looking forward to working with the members of Ahimsa Community Village to create a successful intentional and sustainable living and learning environment. Contact info: grego@yahoo.com Greg's blog

Property and Area (also see pictures)

Land

Ahimsa Village is located on a 65-acre property located near Julian, PA (Houston Township, Centre County) in the Bald Eagle Valley. The land is mostly wooded and mountainous located between the last ridge of the Appalachians and the start of the Allegheny Plateau. The land consists of approximately 7 acres of bottomland, a 5 acre mountain meadow and 50 acres of mature second growth Pennsylvania hardwoods and white pine. Structures include and old 2-story frame farmhouse, a guest yurt, and several outbuildings. The land is held and protected by the School of Living Land Trust. The property was home to the Parson family (and is known as the Parson Tract) and later the Spotts family, two of the original families pioneering Centre County. The Parson family was the first white settlers living west of the Bald Eagle Mountain. Thomas Parsons established a small log cabin next to a little tributary of the Bald Eagle Creek on this property (on the site of the original cabin sits a small frame house build on the stone foundation of the cabin). Leo Spotts and his father farmed the land (originally over 250 acres) and had beef cows. In the sixties and seventies Spotts quit farming and got a job at Penn State University in maintenance. To supplement his income he sold off much of the road frontage as housing lots (1-2 acres), sold 140 acres to Robert Forsberg and others who started the Julian Woods intentional community in 1975 (see below), and sold 40 acres of pasture and woods to a local farmer who raised sheep across the state highway. The prior owners - Dorothy Blair and John Packard - started the first CSA in Bald Eagle Valley. The business was known as “Sycamore Gardens (1990 – 1996).” Dorothy Blair and her husband John Packard farmed using organic and biodynamic methods. In addition to selling organic produce, their projects included creating a wetlands pond for irrigation, maple syrup production, chickens, and gardening internships.

The property is located next to Julian Woods Community, an intentional community of 18 adults and 3 children on 140 acres of land. The community was established in 1975. The community owns and operates a “living machine” in 2 large greenhouses that purifies and recycles all the community’s wastewater. There are 6 artists, several carpenters & builders, accountant, forester & mechanic/designer. The community hosts house concerts, dinners, celebrations, and other events for the local and regional community. It is home to the O-AN Zendo, an active Buddhist meditation and education center, and serves as the office for the School of Living.

In addition to Julian Woods Community and Ahimsa Village land, 7 members purchased an additional 115 acres of forest land to save it from being clear cut. This group formed the Continuum Community Association to hold title to the property which serves as a wilderness sanctuary. The three parcels total 323 acres of protected land in the School of Living Land Trust.

The downsides of our location include its proximity to a major U.S. Highway (known as 220A, Alt220, or old 220) and the Ridge Soaring Gilderport. The land has almost 1000' of frontage on 220A, the main house is located apx. 500' from the road. U.S. 220A formerly U.S. 220 was a major North-South highway for truck traffic. Although traffic has diminished somewhat with the opening of the new U.S. 220 and I-99, 220A continues to serve as a shortcut for trucks to get to I-80. Hence we still have a good amount of truck traffic on the highway which can make the road hazardous to drive not to mention noisy. In fact, its been rated as one of America's most dangerous highways because of it being a rural 2-lane highway used by local residents making local trips and long-haul tractor trailers.

The Ridge Soaring Gliderport is a world-famous gliderport established by Thomas Knauff at about the same time Julian Woods Community was formed. The location was chosen because of the excellent thermals that form along the last ridge of the Appalachian Mountains (the Bald Eagle Ridge). The gliderport can be a very noisy neighbor on nice, sunny, breezy days. The noise is produced by the tow planes when they tow gliders into the thermals.

Ariel photo maps of property (courtesy of CentreMap - http://centremap.psu.edu/):

Surrounding Area

Centre County, PA is located in the geographic center of the state of Pennsylvania. The property is located approximately 15-miles from the vibrant and growing community of State College (population 38,420), home to Penn State University. The Centre County area is famous for its beautiful mountainous surroundings and abundance of state parks, forests, and recreational areas as well as an active farming community. Penn State is Pennsylvania’s largest university with over 41,000 students at its main campus in State College. The university serves as an educational, cultural, and social resource for the area, state and nation. The area is also home to the PA Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA) and one of the largest art festivals on the east coast.

Web Sites:

Center for Sustainability @ PSU http://www.engr.psu.edu/cfs/

Centre County Convention and Visitors Bureau www.visitpennstate.org/

Gateway to Centre Co http://centrecounty.org/

Guide to hiking trails in Centre Co http://www.purplelizard.com/images/html/exploring.htm

PASA http://www.pasafarming.org/

Directions

Map of 4022 S Eagle Valley Rd Julian, PA 16844-8602, US (courtesy of Mapquest)

From the State College area:
Take I-99 South/Rt. 322 West to Exit 68 (Waddle/Grey's Woods), get on "old" 322 W. Stay on "old" 322 W over SkyTop Mountain, take "Milesburg" (Rt 80) Exit. This is Alt220. Take Alt220 North, ~ 6 miles to Ahimsa Village Community, on your left. Look for the red triangle reflector on the mailbox (4022). If you see the Julian Woods Community sign on your left, you have gone one driveway too far.

Ahimsa Village
Learning – Community – Sustainability
4022 S. Eagle Valley Rd, Julian, PA 16844
814-355-0850
info@ahimsavillage.org
http://www.ahimsavillage.org
© 2006