United States

Pine Ridge Gardens

Since 1985, the Slim Buttes Agricultural Development Project has enabled Oglala Lakota Sioux families across Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota to prepare and maintain gardens to augment their diets with fresh organic produce.

Loretta with squash

Life expectancy on Pine Ridge (pop. 40,000) is some twenty years shorter than the national average for multiple reasons, including persistent poverty and food insecurity. Families are burdened by diabetes at 800 times the national average. Access to affordable fresh vegetables is literally life-saving.

Tom-with-watermelon

The project provides tractor services for garden tilling, seedlings, seeds,  advice and tools in response to applications from local residents. Many became interested by listening to the project’s weekly radio show “Talking of Things Growing” on the Lakota radio station, KILI FM. Over the years, the project has grown into eight of the nine Pine Ridge reservation districts.  From a humble start of six gardens in 1985, 200 gardens benefiting approximately 2500 tribal members were assisted in 2017. Plenty has supported the project with donations from individuals, foundation grants, skilled volunteers and our deep respect and partnership over many years.

Disaster Relief & Recovery

Current Activities and Past Efforts

Plenty was founded in 1974 to channel aid and support to families and communities affected by natural disasters, and we have provided disaster relief in many countries, both in the U.S. and abroad since then.

Current Activities 2020-21

* Food and relief aid in response to Hurricanes ETA and IOTA in Central America, November 2020:

  • In Nicaragua we  provided $500 for emergency food to 30 Miskito families in the city of Bilwi, Puerto Cabezas, distributed by the Parroquia de San Pedro Apostal.
  • In Guatemala we provided $1000 to American Friends Service Committee to support their efforts to distribute food, warm clothing, and hygiene supplies to shelters in the Department of Alta Verapaz in northeast Guatemala, one of the most affected areas.

* COVID-19 related support has been provided in Guatemala, Belize, Haiti, Puerto Rico, So. Dakota, and Tennessee. Update to come!

 Plenty’s Relief and Recovery efforts – a chronological summary

Puerto Rico Earthquake (2017-18)

Initial efforts in 2017 included distributing water purification kits and small solar lights in some of the hardest hit areas of the central mountains by two volunteers of AidElevated, a group fiscally sponsored by Plenty. Six portable solar powered high-volume community water filtering units were also sent to Puerto Rico in 2018.

Nepal Earthquake Relief and Recovery (2015 – present)

Plenty fiscally sponsors two relief and rebuilding projects in Nepal, directed and carried out by skilled and dedicated volunteer staff. 

Chupar Village

Immediately after the earthquake in April 2015, this relief and rebuilding effort headed by former Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal, John Vavruska, went into gear – providing food and temporary shelters for the people of Chupar. Further efforts from 2016 to 2019 included rebuilding homes and a new school, built with local labor using traditional methods and Gabon banding for earthquake stability, providing Envirofit cookstoves and more. Continued work in this village will likely be undertaken after the pandemic subsides.

Halchok Village

Here are excerpts from the first letter appeal for this village in 2015:

“As you know, Nepal has suffered a terrible earthquake – in fact two earthquakes, one on April 25 and the second on May 12th. Our son Vajra was in Kathmandu, where he was born, for both quakes and witnessed some of the terrible destruction and loss of life in the Durbar square of Kathmandu where he has an apartment, thankfully in a modern, earthquake-resistant house. Like many people, we immediately responded to the earthquake by giving donations to various institutions dedicated to disaster relief. It soon became apparent that much of the most immediate and elective relief work was being done by small groups of Nepalis and expat foreigners who were supplying relief to communities they knew and had a connection with.
One friend in Santa Fe, John Vavruska, set up a mini relief project for the village of Chupar, ancestral home of other mutual Nepali friends in Santa Fe, Uttam and Budu Rai, funneling donations through a small non-profit: Plenty International http://plenty.local/news/ His effort has inspired us. Just after the first quake, Vajra visited Halcok, the village where we lived for over ten years in the 1980s and 1990s. While he was happy to report that his best friend in Nepal, Sukri Putwar, and his family were safe, there had been widespread destruction of the poorer houses of the village. Vajra wrote us on April 28, “I went up to see Sukri at the village. 56 houses collapsed (out of maybe 100?). All the old houses, gone. It’s as if an entire memory has been erased. Sukri incredibly lucky to be alive. Made me realize that the real destruction in Nepal must be up in the little mountain villages, in the stone houses.”

We decided that we wanted to help, and with the eager participation of the Nepali staff in the office we work with in Nepal, we were able to send up a shipment of food and essential supplies to the homeless villagers encamped below the ruins. We are now planning to provide supplies for more substantial temporary housing, food, sanitation and other priorities.

Please consider adopting Halcok and helping “one village at a time” survive now and rebuild in the future. Thank you. Ian, Lois, Vajra, and Vasundhara Alsop”

Update from Lois & Ian Alsop, July 1, 2018

We are in the final stages of our building phase and nearing the end of our project.

We have completed a total of four new houses after the initial post-earthquake stage of providing food, medicine and temporary shelter to the people of Halchok village.

Here is a link which was sent to all of our donors of a video which was made after the first attempt at building earthquake resistant structures using available local materials and labor.

Following that construction project, we became involved with a local company, Metalwood, which is at the forefront of a new, earthquake-resistant type of metal frame construction which we decided would suit the needs of the village and could be done with village labor and their designs. Three houses have already been built by Metalwood and the villagers in addition to the first model house in the video.

We are now building houses #5 and #6.  As always in Nepal there have been delays in proceeding with plans but we are very satisfied with the first three Metalwood houses which were built between 2017 and 2018.  The villagers are all engaged in the demolishing, clearing of the site, and basic leveling and porter work. Here is a link to a page on the Metalwood site showing their work in the design and construction of  the first house they built for Halchok

After the completion of these last two houses we will not be actively fund raising. Thank you to Plenty for your generous help in making this a reality. 

Lois and Ian”

Super Typhoon Haiyan – the Philippines (2013)

Super Typhoon Haiyan struck the Philippines in November 2013 with brutal force. International relief efforts were massive. Plenty was asked to help the village of Alta Vista on the island of Leyte,  home to about 1,500 people. Every house in the area lost their roof and/or sustained other damage. Alta Vista Elementary School, with 280 k-6th grade students, lost its roof, desks, books and supplies. Plenty provided funds to repair the school and replace books and student supplies. 

 Gulf Coast  (2008 and ongoing)

Louisiana’s Gulf Coast communities are vulnerable to frequent storms and hurricanes and have no protective levee system.

The BP oil disaster in the spring of 2010 added a devastating blow to the Gulf’s environment and the traditional fishing and shrimping livelihoods of its coastal people.

In Terrebonne Parish, working with Tribal leaders, Plenty provided emergency distributions of food and clothing to some of the most impacted Biloxi-Chitimacha families.

Since 2008, thanks to the efforts of Plenty volunteer Elaine Langley and friends, the annual “Bayou Christmas” has provided toys, books, groceries and other aid to over 100 families.  

Replacement beds and mattresses were provided for 16 families after Hurricane Isaac in August 2012, funded by the Philip R. Jonsson Foundation.

Plenty has assisted the Pointe-au-Chene Biloxi-Chitimacha tribe to complete a raised community center that also serves as a tribal office and hurricane shelter, and house a library and computer lab. The center was completed in 2014.

Supporting the people of the Gulf since Katrina enables us to witness longer-term impacts to the health and wellbeing of these highly vulnerable coastal communities.

Haiti earthquake (January 12, 2010)

The National Palace in Port-au-Prince after the earthquake.

When Haiti’s overcrowded capital collapsed into a deadly avalanche of rubble in the massive quake, Haiti was already the most impoverished country in the western hemisphere with 70% unemployment and an infant mortality rate of 60 per thousand births, ten times greater than the US rate.

Elaine gives medicine to a little girl.
Plenty medical volunteer works in a temporary emergency clinic in the village of Cayes Jacmel after the earthquake.

Plenty assistance to Haiti from 2010-13 has largely focused on health and medical needs:

  • Medicines and supplies for the immediate relief effort, and ongoing to the ADHD clinic in La Vallee; water purification tablets to Le Mabouya, a Haitian environmental NGO in Cayes-Jacmel, (southeast Haiti); and to a clinic in Cape Haitian (central plateau), run by the Haitian NGO Sante Total – $7,000
  • Ten heavy-duty wheelchairs designed for rural use by Whirlwind Wheelchairs – $2200
  • Support for clinical volunteers, and teaching workshops for Haitian midwives on Home Based Life Saving Skills – simple interventions that save mother and infant lives – $1,800

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita: (August/September 2005)

Together, these Gulf Coast hurricanes constituted the most devastating natural disaster to hit the U.S. in its history.

NOLA under water
New Orleans was 80% under water three days after Katrina.

Times of great tragedy often generate great compassion, and this disaster was no exception. The world witnessed an unprecedented outpouring of caring and mobilization in response. We are very grateful for the many generous people who channeled their time, talents and funds through Plenty to help.

plastic on roof
Plenty volunteers cover a roof with plastic.

Multiple runs of volunteers and supplies were organized from our home base in Tennessee to assist hurricane victims in Louisiana and Mississippi in building repair, supply distribution, medical care, mold abatement, needs assessment, and more.

Joel gets into it
Volunteers gutted houses in preparation for rebuilding

Other supply and volunteer runs were mobilized from Tennessee, Texas, and Florida. Volunteers came from as far as New York, California, and Oregon.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Plenty team in New Orleans.

Food, water, medical supplies, blankets, heaters, clothing, batteries, cleaning and other supplies were purchased and distributed thanks to donations raised from individuals and community fundraisers. 

Katrina relief work also led to the creation of Plenty’s ongoing program, Books To Kids. 

Hurricane Stan: (October 2005) Guatemala

Torrential rains caused deadly mudslides around Lake Atitlan in the department of Solola, which killed at least 600 people and displaced thousands in the traditional Mayan communities of this area. Plenty provided $8,700 for emergency and longer term food relief, which was coordinated through Plenty’s Central American Food Security program partner Asociacion De Desarollo Integral Belen (ADIBE) and their soy foods processing facility, which is located near the affected area.

Tsunami: (December 2004) India and Sri Lanka

On December 26, 2004, a devastating tsunami struck 1,356 miles of Indian coastline, destroying or seriously damaging 883 villages and affecting 1.2 million people. Over 10,000 people died in mainland India. We were asked by a trusted colleague working in India to support  a project to assist pregnant women and children. $2,870 was utilized for playgrounds for children in two villages (Chinoor and Velangiriyan Pettai), as a way to help them in their trauma recovery. The remaining $5,577 supported a project to provide pre- and post-natal care, nutritional food and vitamin supplements, vaccinations, psychological counseling, and special needs assistance to 276 pregnant women and 391 nursing mothers living in 25 villages that were devastated by the tsunami.

Hurricane Iris: (October 2001) Belize

This category 5 hurricane swept through southern Belize in October 2001, destroying homes, crops, and rainforest. Plenty Belize staff and volunteers set up outdoor emergency kitchens in 5 villages, where residents and the Plenty crew produced and distributed over 1000 lbs. of high protein dry cereal and drink mixes and coordinated other aid delivery in the area. Funds raised also purchased tools and seeds to enable 275 farming families to begin replanting. We assisted our longterm friends the Toledo Cacao Growers Association to  set up 4 village tree nurseries with drip irrigation by solar water pumps. About $17,000 was raised for these efforts from individuals and small grants.

Hurricane Mitch: (November 1999) Nicaragua

Plenty raised $5,726 through individuals and two small grants for Hurricane Mitch relief. Plenty built 2 houses and repaired three others, installed two neighborhood water wells, and supported a local woman’s group MUPROVI (Women Producing for Life) in the town of San Juan de Limay, by donating food and supplies for their temporary Olla Comunal (community kitchen). The community kitchen served approximately 80 kids one meal a day, 5 or 6 days a week for several months. Two Plenty representatives drove a load of medical supplies and house wares from Texas to Nicaragua, and donated their four wheel drive Toyota truck to help move supplies to families who lost homes and more in the hurricane. They also worked with MUPROVI to replant trees and re-establish vegetable gardens in the year following Mitch.

Guatemalan earthquake: (February 1976)

Two years after Plenty’s founding, we began our international work by responding to a massive earthquake that struck the Guatemalan highlands, killing over 23,000 people. Early relief efforts involved volunteer carpenter crews from the Farm Community who began rebuilding the town of San Andreas Itzapa and outlying rural communities. Deep underlying conditions of poverty and social inequality were revealed through this work, and seeing an opportunity to provide longer term assistance, the Farm Community, through Plenty sent more volunteers with health care, farming, communication and related skills. Initial relief efforts evolved into a multi-year program involving hundreds of volunteers, partly funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). 1200 homes, 12 schools and several clinics were rebuilt, a radio station established, agriculture and nutrition projects, health care training, and a free clinic provided services, and orphaned and malnourished children were cared for by Plenty volunteers.

adobe rubble 2
The earthquake in Guatemala killed 23,000 people and left a million homeless.

 

Itzapa camp crew portrait2
Plenty Guatemala volunteer camp, 1977.

Tornadoes in southern US: (1975-76)

In Plenty’s earliest years, we helped our neighbors in times of need, responding to local disasters by collecting and transporting truckloads of food, blankets, and clothing from Plenty headquarters at the Farm Community in middle Tennessee to tornado and flood victims in Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee.

Books To Kids

 

 

Since 2006 Books To Kids volunteers have distributed free, quality books to disadvantaged children in Louisiana and Tennessee.

As of January 2021 well over 300,000 books have been provided to children through schools, families, community centers and libraries!

Books To Kids seeks to help children cope with stressful life circumstances and ultimately, to increase their academic success by promoting literacy and a love of reading.  With these skills, children are better equipped to make informed life choices. The program focuses on children up to age 11, when a child’s academic foundation can have its most powerful effect on both the child and their family.

Books To Kids was started by Nashville, Tennessee resident Jim Selin, who had assisted Plenty in relief efforts after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. Jim saw first hand the devastation experienced by families in New Orleans and began to give out books to help children move beyond the trauma they experienced.

Over 7000 kids are served annually by Books To Kids, most of whom live below the federal poverty level. Poverty and early stress not only impacts a child’s day-to-day life, but also the choices and opportunities she or he has to create future happiness and success. In short we strive to reach those in greatest need, and focus onschools where all the children qualify for thefree lunch program.

In recent years BTK has expanded, providing books to other Plenty partners to distribute including Plenty Belize in Central America and at Pine Ridge Oglala Sioux Territory in So. Dakota.

Research has demonstrated the correlation between the number of books in a child’s home and their academic success. That is why the majority of Books To Kids books, while distributed in schools, are destined for students’ homes, to be shared with family and friends.

After Hurricane Sandy blasted coastal New York and New Jersey, Books To Kids distributed books in neighborhoods that had been hit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How it works:

Book acquisition operates year round. Books are chosen utilizing guidelines regarding illustrations, language, and content.  Volunteers help with acquisition, distribution and related tasks. Volunteers:

  • Acquire quality books from libraries, families, thrift and used book stores, yard sales, and other sources.
  • Process, box and label books for distribution.
  • Transport the books to schools and community centers, which distribute the free reading materials directly to children.

For most of BTK’s history, three to four book distribution trips took place annually to the Gulf coast area and in Middle Tennessee. Due to Covid-19 travel restrictions in 2020-21, books are currently being shipped by mail.

Current Gulf Coast distribution sites include:
  • Boothville-Venice Elementary School, LA (our oldest site)
  • Mildred Osborne Elementary School, New Orleans (part of the Arise Academy system)
  • Point Aux Chenes Community Center, LA
  • The Lower Ninth Ward Literacy project, New Orleans
  • Families of Isle de Jean Charles, LA (14 years)
  • Abney Elementary School, Slidell LA (one of our success stories! Now “graduated” from BTK and connected with “Books a Million”)
  • Brock Elementary School, Slidell LA
  • Orleans Parish Juvenile Justice Center, LA
  • So. Plaquemine Elementary School, LA
  • Mardi Gras Chewbaccus parade (New Orleans) and Mona Lisa Moon Pie parade in October (Slidell)
  • Special events with the Lower Ninth Ward Literacy Project
  • Dat School (near Upper 9thWard) gets books into the neighborhood
  • Community Works afterschool program (provides enrichment activities at several schools in Orleans Parish)
Kids living on Isle de Jean Charles, an island off the coast of Louisiana that is gradually eroding into the Gulf of Mexico, examine their new books.

Current Middle Tennessee sites include Highland Park Elementary School in Columbia and the Kids To The Country program in Summertown. BTK also provides books to “Book ‘Em” another nonprofit partner in Nashville TN.

Volunteers in Tennessee and New Orleans keep building new relationships with school principals, community center directors, and other children’s programs that suggest additional sites where books are needed and will be distributed.

BTK also helps facilitate the placement of Little Free Libraries on the Gulf coast and north Nashville and supplies books for them.

Taking into account all expenses of acquisition, transportation and distribution, each book is provided to a child at a cost of approximately 50 cents.

Books were given away during the Literacy Parade in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans in May, 2013.
Maria Prout, Principal of Boothville-Venice Elementary School:

”When Jim brings books we organize them and set them out on a table in the library with a sign that says “Free Books from Mr. Jim”. We encourage the teachers to take their classes to see the books.

The children are then able to take home books they select. Since we’ve been able to build up our school library, we wanted to give the kids the opportunity to actually take books home.

The teachers work with the kids on how to organize their home libraries according to genre, author. Sometimes a student will bring back one of the books that they particularly liked to offer them to other kids or ask their teacher to read it to the class.

I would like to see more books from Plenty because our big push right now is literacy. The more we can get books into the hands of the parents that they can read to their kids and the more we can get books into the hands of the kids, the better our community is going to be.”

Dawn LaFonte, Principal:

”Thank you so much for the visit and the books you graciously brought to Pointe aux Chene and Oaklawn Jr. High. The students were delighted to have them. We frequently have visits at Oaklawn Jr. High by students who are mentally and physically impaired.

The law states that they must be included on a regular school campus, which delights me. However, we frequently don’t have materials on their level.

Your last drop of books to me had several wonderful Indian stories on their level. We shared them in the library and they were so excited!

The regular students in the library were excited to read to the challenged students as well. That was a blessing I did not think I would see!

Thank you for making such an important difference in the lives of our students. It means so much!”

Our greatest need is to add more volunteers and funding to continue and grow Books To Kids. Your donations and support are greatly appreciated!

For more information: http://www.facebook.com/bookstokids or email info@plenty.org 

Kids To The Country

Plenty’s Kids To The Country (KTC) program offers at-risk urban kids the opportunity to get out of the city and their troubled situations to develop a connection to nature through hands-on experience.  KTC takes place on 1750 acres of woods, fields and streams 80 miles south of Nashville on Tennessee’s Highland Rim. The land belongs to a 50 year-old intentional community called The Farm, where KTC has operated since 1986.

KTC kids come from homeless shelters, refugee centers, and low-income neighborhoods. More than 8500 children have participated since the program began in Tennessee.

summer-crafts1
A KTC craft-making session next to the “swimming hole,” a pond with a sandy beach, which is a favorite spot for the kids.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kids To The Country provides the opportunity for kids to:

  • experience a multicultural environment
  • build a sense of community and positive self-esteem
  • learn nonviolent conflict resolution skills
  • develop healthful relationships
  • expand their world view
bike riders
The Farm has lots of safe places to ride bikes.

KTC structures activities to form lasting feelings of accomplishment and self-worth in each child. The nature school curriculum helps every youngster develop an experiential connection to the rhythms of nature, the animals, and the woods!

counselor-2-girls-in-the-water
Swimming lessons in the “swimming hole.”

Many former KTC kids return to become counselors in training. The first week of KTC is always set aside for our counselor training, and includes a day for the younger kids to come and interact with the counselor trainees.

Many of the youngsters we get to know live with the daily threat of random violence. One expressed  “I bet there’s no shoot-outs here like there are in my neighborhood.” In recent times we’ve seen the unthinkable happen in our schools and in our cities. We know that ignoring the needs of children in our communities ultimately affects us all.

To find out how you can sponsor a child or participate in the Kids To The Country program, please email us, Mary Ellen Bowen, MSc, Director, kidstothecountry@gmail.com, or write to: KTC, 425 Farm Road, Suite 3, Summertown, TN 38483. Donations to KTC are tax-deductible and always greatly appreciated!

Kids To The Country is an outdoor, experiential, education program (not camp). For more information about Kids To The Country please visit us and like us on Facebook here.

2014 Fall/Winter Bulletin

November 2014

Dear Friends of Plenty,

  You’ve probably heard by now that Plenty’s founder and mentor, Stephen Gaskin passed away on July first of this year, right before our annual Plenty Board meeting. He hadn’t been directly involved with Plenty over the past few years but, without his original inspiration and vision, Plenty would not have been born. I first met him in 1968 in a church basement in San Francisco where he was holding meetings with a couple of hundred hippies on Thursday nights. Over the course of the following year these meetings grew to about 1,500 and they filled a local rock and roll hall, the Family Dog, on Monday Nights. Stephen would sit on a low wooden platform, talking without a microphone and lead a conversation related to the things we were all thinking about in those days like spirit and energy, war and peace and what could we young hippies do in a country and a world that we believed desperately needed some kind of spiritual awakening. We viewed Monday Night Class as the Continental Congress for the Second American Revolution, a revolution that would be nonviolent and motivated by love, but a real revolution in the sense that we wanted to live very differently based on our discoveries of who we were and what it means to be human. Of course, the late sixties and early seventies were traumatic times with the ever-present specter of an insane war in Vietnam and the assassinations of icons like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy. Then came the shooting of four students at Kent State by the National Guard on May 4, 1970.  That was on a Monday and that night, when we were gathered in the Family Dog as usual, the voices for arming ourselves and taking it to the streets were especially loud and insistent. It truly felt like the country was on the brink of a generational civil war and Stephen played a pivotal role as a voice for peace, pointing out that, in the first place, we couldn’t win a shooting war and, most importantly, our revolution would be rendered worse than meaningless, just another sorry chapter in the immensely stupid and self-destructive cycle of violence that seemed to have forever plagued our species.

On October 12 of that year, about 200 of us headed out across America with Stephen who had been invited on a speaking tour at universities and churches and community centers and town halls. We had moved into school buses fitted out with beds and kitchens and wood stoves. The first gig was in Minneapolis. We went to New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, Nashville, Boulder, CO and dozens of cities and towns in between, finally ending up back in San Francisco with the understanding that it was time to put our money where our mouth was.

The first step was to make a community where we could live together. We decided to head to Tennessee, to get away from the political noise on both coasts and where we might be able to afford land. We got lucky and found a thousand acre farm for $70/acre. In the beginning we were just learning how to farm and feed ourselves and deliver babies and deal with no running water and no electricity. We were very poor but we still felt like we had more than enough to be able to share. Because we had always been committed to effecting change in the world, the next natural step was to start Plenty. Through these early years of the Farm and Plenty, when we were pretty green and wet behind the ears and learning how to get along with each other (by 1974 when we founded Plenty there were about 600 of us) Stephen was an essential guide and I don’t think we could have made it without him. The rest is history and we actually have a book in the works (“The Roots of Plenty”) that will be out before year-end. On top of that, the Farm and Plenty are on display in the Tennessee State Museum in Nashville as part of an Intentional Communities of Tennessee exhibit until the end of November. Imagine that.

I’d like to sign off with love and a big thank you to Stephen for his courage, vision and perseverance. I want to make a special plea for our friends and colleagues, Bisi and Mahmoud Iderabdullah who manage Imani House International, which has a clinic that’s on the front lines of the Ebola epidemic in Liberia. Two of their staff have died from the disease. They need all the help we can give them. The new Bulletin is full of stories of people who inspire. They’re all on the front lines of the global campaign to make things better, to find and create solutions and to take care of others. They deserve our help.

With thanks to you from all of us at Plenty,

Peter Schweitzer

To view the Fall/Winter 2014 Plenty Bulletin simply click this link:
Plenty Bulletin Fall/Winter 2014

Plenty Bulletin Fall/Winter 2014

November 2014

Dear Friends of Plenty,

  You’ve probably heard by now that Plenty’s founder and mentor, Stephen Gaskin passed away on July first of this year, right before our annual Plenty Board meeting. He hadn’t been directly involved with Plenty over the past few years but, without his original inspiration and vision, Plenty would not have been born. I first met him in 1968 in a church basement in San Francisco where he was holding meetings with a couple of hundred hippies on Thursday nights. Over the course of the following year these meetings grew to about 1,500 and they filled a local rock and roll hall, the Family Dog, on Monday Nights. Stephen would sit on a low wooden platform, talking without a microphone and lead a conversation related to the things we were all thinking about in those days like spirit and energy, war and peace and what could we young hippies do in a country and a world that we believed desperately needed some kind of spiritual awakening. We viewed Monday Night Class as the Continental Congress for the Second American Revolution, a revolution that would be nonviolent and motivated by love, but a real revolution in the sense that we wanted to live very differently based on our discoveries of who we were and what it means to be human. Of course, the late sixties and early seventies were traumatic times with the ever-present specter of an insane war in Vietnam and the assassinations of icons like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy. Then came the shooting of four students at Kent State by the National Guard on May 4, 1970.  That was on a Monday and that night, when we were gathered in the Family Dog as usual, the voices for arming ourselves and taking it to the streets were especially loud and insistent. It truly felt like the country was on the brink of a generational civil war and Stephen played a pivotal role as a voice for peace, pointing out that, in the first place, we couldn’t win a shooting war and, most importantly, our revolution would be rendered worse than meaningless, just another sorry chapter in the immensely stupid and self-destructive cycle of violence that seemed to have forever plagued our species.

On October 12 of that year, about 200 of us headed out across America with Stephen who had been invited on a speaking tour at universities and churches and community centers and town halls. We had moved into school buses fitted out with beds and kitchens and wood stoves. The first gig was in Minneapolis. We went to New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, Nashville, Boulder, CO and dozens of cities and towns in between, finally ending up back in San Francisco with the understanding that it was time to put our money where our mouth was.

The first step was to make a community where we could live together. We decided to head to Tennessee, to get away from the political noise on both coasts and where we might be able to afford land. We got lucky and found a thousand acre farm for $70/acre. In the beginning we were just learning how to farm and feed ourselves and deliver babies and deal with no running water and no electricity. We were very poor but we still felt like we had more than enough to be able to share. Because we had always been committed to effecting change in the world, the next natural step was to start Plenty. Through these early years of the Farm and Plenty, when we were pretty green and wet behind the ears and learning how to get along with each other (by 1974 when we founded Plenty there were about 600 of us) Stephen was an essential guide and I don’t think we could have made it without him. The rest is history and we actually have a book in the works (“The Roots of Plenty”) that will be out before year-end. On top of that, the Farm and Plenty are on display in the Tennessee State Museum in Nashville as part of an Intentional Communities of Tennessee exhibit until the end of November. Imagine that.

I’d like to sign off with love and a big thank you to Stephen for his courage, vision and perseverance. I want to make a special plea for our friends and colleagues, Bisi and Mahmoud Iderabdullah who manage Imani House International, which has a clinic that’s on the front lines of the Ebola epidemic in Liberia. Two of their staff have died from the disease. They need all the help we can give them. The new Bulletin is full of stories of people who inspire. They’re all on the front lines of the global campaign to make things better, to find and create solutions and to take care of others. They deserve our help.

With thanks to you from all of us at Plenty,

Peter Schweitzer

To view the Fall/Winter 2014 Plenty Bulletin simply click this link:
Plenty Bulletin Fall/Winter 2014

Kids To The Country

Kids To The Country is an outdoor, experiential, education program for at-risk urban children and is Plenty’s local project. In Nashville Tennessee, nearly a third of all children live in poverty. Many of these kids live in single parent or caregiver households, or have parents who are incarcerated or are in drug treatment. At times their lives can feel bleak and hopeless. Our goal has been to open the minds of such children to the possibility of a future very different from their present.

Since 1986, Kids To The Country (KTC) has offered at-risk youth aged 6-11 a chance to get out of the city and experience nature through healthy, hands-on activities. These youngsters are referred to KTC from homeless shelters, refugee centers and other community groups working in low-income neighborhoods in Nashville. KTC’s summer sessions take place at the 1750 acre Farm Community in Summertown, an area filled with miles of natural beauty. KTC staff and volunteers include trained youth counselors, teachers, artists, musicians, water-safety and horse-riding instructors, and health care professionals. Activities include nature study, developing conflict resolution skills, swimming, dance, horseback and bike riding, story telling, gardening, arts and crafts, a talent and art show, and lots of one on one attention. Program staff and counselors actively teach kids (and model themselves) how to cooperate with others, take responsibility for their actions, deal constructively with anger and conflict, and build lasting friendships in a multi-cultural setting.

The goal of our new KTC Leadership and Counselor Development Program is to screen KTC “graduates” and teens to participate in the KTC program as youth leaders/counselors. Last year we expected our four-day intensive training to be both a powerful experience for thirteen to fifteen year-olds and provide a pool of trained urban counselor apprentices. These expectations have been met and exceeded. We have been delighted by the impact that being a KTC counselor has had on the teenagers that serve on our youth staff and our young counselors-in-training from the city.
Special thanks to the Bay and Paul Foundations.

A KTC Volunteer’s Story by Jamie Neal Jackson
It was the third day of Kids to the Country, and counselors and kids alike were all having a great time down by the swimming hole eating watermelon and splashing around. I looked behind me and saw one little boy (we called him D) off by himself, quietly crying. I approached D and asked him what was wrong? I had thought we were all having a really good time together. Well, this nine-year-old little boy began, “Jamie, I just love Kids To The Country so much, and I don’t ever want to leave here. I’m just so thankful to be able to be here, but I just, I just feel bad because I feel like every kid everywhere should get to come to Kids To The Country. I just feel so blessed!” I was astounded at the amount of emotion filling this little boy up while all of his friends were running around having such a wonderful time.

D and I spent a long time talking about how much he appreciated the counselors at KTC and how much we counselors enjoyed being able to spend so much time with kids like him. After a while I steered D over to the snacks and crafts table and we began to chat and joke around more lightheartedly. But this little boy’s strength and emotion stuck with me for a long time. I knew then that Kids To The Country was accomplishing something truly life changing and powerful, both for the kids and for us, the counselors. I am so grateful!

Gulf Coast Recovery

In February we started installing the library and computer lab in the Community Center of the local Pointe au Chien Indian Tribe. Thanks to the Philip R. Jonsson Foundation for funding this project and Tulane University student volunteers Hannah Dean and Margot Habets for their assistance. Tribal members Theresa and Donald Dardar were on hand to help out.

This past December Plenty volunteer Elaine Langley once again organized a Bayou Christmas gift-giving program for about 60 children of Isle de Jean Charles and Pointe-aux-Chenes on the Gulf Coast of Louisiana. Thanks to Angela Fox, Jeff Becker, Darlene Marks and Carol Stachurski for helping again.

Pine Ridge Gardens

Thanks to the support of Running Strong for American Indian Youth, the Philip R. Jonsson Foundation, Onaway Trust, Dr. David and Janet Winek and individual Plenty donors, the 24-year-old Pine Ridge Gardens Project is continuing in 2014. In April Plenty purchased the seeds that will grow into the seedlings that will be distributed to gardeners around the reservation. Plenty is also helping to support the Monday morning KILI Radio broadcasts of gardening information that can be heard throughout the reservation and on the Internet at kiliradio.org.