12-06-2004, 11:59 AM
http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluth...349818.htm
ELPING OTHERS: Community Homestead offers developmentally disabled adults a place to live and work at their own level of abilities.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
OSCEOLA, Wis. - The three dozen people who live in six houses here are more than neighbors. They are an "intentional community" that finds freedom in being needed, luxury in austerity and value in everyone.
Members of Community Homestead in the rolling bluffs along the St. Croix River pool their money and make decisions by consensus.
But what sets them apart is their mission to live and work with developmentally disabled adults.
"If you have 'special needs,' you spend a lot of your life having other people tell you what to do," said Christine Elmquist, one of several people who founded the community 10 years ago. "It's crushing to the human spirit to always be accepting help or direction, to never feel you can do something on your own. Here, everyone contributes whatever he or she can do, and everyone gets back what they need to live."
Many have given up the security of savings and a steady career for the lifestyle and values here.
On a recent morning, Oscar Rauch-Borgerding, 23, loaded boxes with dark green kale, carrots, squash, onions and garlic as others worked the fields or baked bread. The developmentally disabled man has lived here for two years.
"If we could get an alternative energy source, we could stop using electricity for this," Rauch-Borgerding said as he pulled shut a heavy insulated refrigerator door. "Maybe solar."
Here, Rauch-Borgerding is talkative and explains the farm's workings to anyone who will listen. He often gives tours and is assigned to help at craft fairs because he's a natural salesman. But his lack of judgment and trusting nature would have made him vulnerable living on his own.
Sixteen adults with developmental disabilities ranging from autism disorders to Down syndrome live here.
Community Homestead charges $1,400 per month for room, board and the day program, which Wald said is a relatively low amount.
Fees paid by government programs or families make up 40 percent of the community's half-million-dollar gross annual budget, while another 40 percent comes from the sale of milk through the Organic Valley farm cooperative and the sale of produce. The rest is made up by the contributed salaries of a few who maintain outside jobs.
The nondisabled community members -- or co-workers, as they're called -- receive room and board, health insurance and $80 a month for clothing and personal expenses.
The lifestyle is simple. Lisa Jamila, a single mother who used to manage a battered-women's shelter in Minneapolis, can rattle off things she gave up to move here two years ago with her 10-year-old daughter -- spontaneity, privacy, her future financial security, her Ford Explorer.
She misses the freedom to pick up at the spur of the moment without having to think about others.
"It's very intense to be living this lifestyle," she said. "It's like you're a foster parent. You're always on."
But she said the shared responsibilities and her daughter's freedom to run directly to the barns after school make up for it.
"It's really beautiful to be living with people of different needs. It totally breeds empathy and kindness," Jamila said.
The community is loosely connected to the international Camphill Movement, a communal model of living started in Scotland in which people with and without developmental disabilities share homes and work alongside each other.
It is one of six such communities in the United States, including the first and largest in Copake, N.Y., a community of nearly 250 people where Christine Elmquist and her husband, Richard, had lived.
They started Community Homestead with Sophia and Adrian Werthmann, in 1995, buying a 160-acre farm and incorporating as a nonprofit organization.
ELPING OTHERS: Community Homestead offers developmentally disabled adults a place to live and work at their own level of abilities.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
OSCEOLA, Wis. - The three dozen people who live in six houses here are more than neighbors. They are an "intentional community" that finds freedom in being needed, luxury in austerity and value in everyone.
Members of Community Homestead in the rolling bluffs along the St. Croix River pool their money and make decisions by consensus.
But what sets them apart is their mission to live and work with developmentally disabled adults.
"If you have 'special needs,' you spend a lot of your life having other people tell you what to do," said Christine Elmquist, one of several people who founded the community 10 years ago. "It's crushing to the human spirit to always be accepting help or direction, to never feel you can do something on your own. Here, everyone contributes whatever he or she can do, and everyone gets back what they need to live."
Many have given up the security of savings and a steady career for the lifestyle and values here.
On a recent morning, Oscar Rauch-Borgerding, 23, loaded boxes with dark green kale, carrots, squash, onions and garlic as others worked the fields or baked bread. The developmentally disabled man has lived here for two years.
"If we could get an alternative energy source, we could stop using electricity for this," Rauch-Borgerding said as he pulled shut a heavy insulated refrigerator door. "Maybe solar."
Here, Rauch-Borgerding is talkative and explains the farm's workings to anyone who will listen. He often gives tours and is assigned to help at craft fairs because he's a natural salesman. But his lack of judgment and trusting nature would have made him vulnerable living on his own.
Sixteen adults with developmental disabilities ranging from autism disorders to Down syndrome live here.
Community Homestead charges $1,400 per month for room, board and the day program, which Wald said is a relatively low amount.
Fees paid by government programs or families make up 40 percent of the community's half-million-dollar gross annual budget, while another 40 percent comes from the sale of milk through the Organic Valley farm cooperative and the sale of produce. The rest is made up by the contributed salaries of a few who maintain outside jobs.
The nondisabled community members -- or co-workers, as they're called -- receive room and board, health insurance and $80 a month for clothing and personal expenses.
The lifestyle is simple. Lisa Jamila, a single mother who used to manage a battered-women's shelter in Minneapolis, can rattle off things she gave up to move here two years ago with her 10-year-old daughter -- spontaneity, privacy, her future financial security, her Ford Explorer.
She misses the freedom to pick up at the spur of the moment without having to think about others.
"It's very intense to be living this lifestyle," she said. "It's like you're a foster parent. You're always on."
But she said the shared responsibilities and her daughter's freedom to run directly to the barns after school make up for it.
"It's really beautiful to be living with people of different needs. It totally breeds empathy and kindness," Jamila said.
The community is loosely connected to the international Camphill Movement, a communal model of living started in Scotland in which people with and without developmental disabilities share homes and work alongside each other.
It is one of six such communities in the United States, including the first and largest in Copake, N.Y., a community of nearly 250 people where Christine Elmquist and her husband, Richard, had lived.
They started Community Homestead with Sophia and Adrian Werthmann, in 1995, buying a 160-acre farm and incorporating as a nonprofit organization.