Summer Bulletin 2006 Vol. 22, No.2

Articles:

Introduction
Gulf Coast Hurricane Relief Efforts
Representatives of Four CAFSI Programs Meet in Managua
Visit to Centro Huichol, Huejuquilla, Mexico
Plenty Belize GATE Program
Kids to the Country Celebrates its 20th Anniversary
Kathryn Hutchens, 1949-2006

Dear Plenty Friends,

When we came out to Tennessee in 1971, we saw a country, the US of A, that was badly in need of a "Second American Revolution," but this time without guns. We agreed with Mother Teresa’s assessment that, while materially the wealthiest nation in the world, America was spiritually impoverished. Remember, we were deep in Vietnam, another tragic mistake of a war. There was almost a generational civil war taking place brewing in an atmosphere of mistrust and paranoia. We headed for Tennessee at least partly to get away from the overheated noise and political wrangling of the times. We wanted to experiment with something new, to try and create a community on a foundation of mutual trust and understanding, telling the truth fearlessly, with a commitment to peace. No guns allowed.

Thirty-five years later, some of us who arrived in those school buses in 1971 are grandparents. Some of us have passed away. Our population is roughly the same as it was when we came here, but we’re made up of four generations who get along with each other pretty well. We’re not rich by any means, but we’re living fairly gracefully. No one is homeless. No one is hungry. We are now managing nearly 4,000 ecologically rich acres of mostly woodlands and meadows and streams. We grow a lot of our food in home gardens. We have a soy dairy and a publishing company, a clinic and a community school. We have a team of midwives who deliver our own and many of our neighbors’ babies and hold workshops for women who want to learn midwifery. We’re busy and, for the most part, we’re having a good time. That peaceful "Second American Revolution" we were hoping for? You’d hardly know it from the nightly TV news, but it’s alive and well, just moving much more quietly and slowly and farther under the media radar than we might have once thought it would move. We see it in the internationality of our children’s generation, in the ease with which they move in foreign cultures and in their tolerance of others and compassion for the downtrodden. We see it in the volunteers who come to Plenty looking for ways to help. We see it at an extraordinary level in the Gulf where the graying life-long activists are working side by side with a new crop of committed young people.

I can remember us thinking in 1971 that the country was going to undergo a truly radical transformation over the next 10 years. Surely in that time, most of the country would be living in intentional communities like ours, sharing resources, growing food, running off alternative energy, living lightly on the land. All that. Of course, when you’re 20, 10 years looks like a lot longer time than when you’re 60. Now, circumstances outside our immediate control might push us to make changes faster that we might plan to make them. For instance, some climate-change models are predicting that every ten years the climate we currently inhabit will become more like the climate people inhabit 100 miles to our south. We can expect oil shortages to be among the least of our worries. Potential food and water supplies are far more important.

We just had our annual Plenty International meeting. Some of us were looking at the first part of the original charter that marked Plenty’s founding in 1974. Under the "purposes" of the charitable corporation we had listed: "To help share out the world’s food, resources, materials and knowledge equitably for the benefit of all; To help and aid any people anywhere in the world who due to any natural or man-caused disaster such as drought, famine, flood, storm, earthquake, tidal wave, weather imbalance, disease epidemic, fire, insect devastation, crop failure, population imbalance, war, political oppression, religious oppression, racial discrimination, or greed are in need of food, clothing, shelter, medical aid and supplies, resources, materials; agricultural, engineering, or scientific assistance or education; or anything else, to enable them to lead healthy, comfortable, responsible, and productive lives in the pursuit of happiness."

Obviously, "limits" was not yet part of our vocabulary, but you know, if we were writing our charter over again today it probably wouldn’t read all that different because we see Plenty International as just our part of a whole global community of like-minded, people-rooted organizations every bit as idealistic and heart-driven as Plenty. This is a good thing because the challenges we are facing require that pretty much every one on the planet do their part. Since you already know that, we would like to thank you once more.

When our dear friend and Board Member Kathryn Hutchens passed away in April, we lost a strong and elegant voice of peace and wisdom, but happily, we have still have her songs. Kathryn had a way of distilling the kinds of pure nuggets of truth that can help guide our path through this world. This is from her song called "Everyday."

Everyday it’s a miracle, though it happens everyday. Every hour, every minute, every second, somewhere close or far away. Every time it’s a miracle, though it happens all of the time. This life is a miracle – yours and mine.

Sincerely,

Peter Schweitzer
Executive Director