Lorax Community Project

Protect the Land of Peace

2011-02-08T09:51:00.000-08:00

Dear Animal Friends,

Please join the worldwide signature campaign launched to protect The Land of Peace
Between People, Nature and Animals against a proposed highway that would go right
through the center of the largest connective bio tope system in Germany! This unique land
offers domestic and wild animals a place to live in peace and without fear, which they
rightfully deserve!

Go directly to the web site: www.Gabriele-Foundation.org and click on the "Signature
Campaign" button on the right side, under the title "Protect the Land of Peace".

It is VERY URGENT to get as many signatures as possible as quickly as possible. It takes
less than a minute!!

The animals and us thank you so much for your help and please pass this along to friends.

- Carmelina Finn

P.S. Check out the Gabriele Foundation web site! There are wonderful animal rescue
stories!

Happy Spring! Lengthy & Long Awaited Updates!

2010-04-15T20:59:00.000-07:00

Greetings to all!

I'm pleased to announce that two of our Lorax Community projects/spaces (NYC & Minneapolis) are now in the beginning stages of being up and running.

Minneapolis Lorax Community is all settled into their new space and gearing up to host its first raw food potluck in the form of a housewarming party this coming weekend (Saturday, 17th April). Please click the link if you happen to be in the area and interested in attending.

NYC Lorax Community Garden Sanctuary is still in the process of setup/moving in, but are still operating without an internet connection or computer for our office. Blog and YouTube posts will most certainly increase once we manage to remedy this situation, but for the time being we will remain extremely limited in our ability to post and update regularly (not that our posting has been all that frequent anyway, with all of the other things which must be done away from computers).

NYC's Lorax Community Garden Sanctuary is currently seeking donations to fill our space and garden with positive energy and intention from friends and supporters of all boroughs.

Our little house is absolutely wonderful, but it is also very small as far as storage capacity is concerned. Therefore, we are in need of some items which may help us to maximise space and storage capacity for smaller items.

I will try to make the following list very specific, but please bear in mind that we are very flexible and open to all offers. =)

Some items we are currently seeking include:

Furniture (in good condition):

Daybed with drawers and/or trundle - √

Standing wardrobes/cabinets for guest room, kitchen and dining areas -

Large(ish) dining room table & chairs (sets preferred). We would like to seat at least 8 people, ideally 12 - √

Shelving of various types. We're hoping to find something "laddering" for plants we will be raising in our indoor nursery. - √

Sofa (not too big, preferably with pull-out bed) or futon, perhaps a matching chair - √

Captain's / storage bed, full size preferred - √

Small wood filing cabinet for a very small office - √

Chairs - √

Garden/related items:

Soil

Gardening tools of any and all kinds

Heirloom seeds (organic)

Seedlings (heirloom, organic)

Pots for planting

Large Containers for composting

Rocks/bricks

Fencing materials

Miscellaneous household:

Interior paint, various colours - √

Tools

Curtains & rods - √

Blinds (wood or faux wood preferred) - √

Surge protection power strips - √

Laminate flooring

Curtains/fabric, hooks, rods, etc. - √

Blankets & bedding - √

Clothes dryer

iMac computer

Kitchen/dining glassware - √

Storage trunks

Shelving

Gardening books

Projector screen

Projector - √

Monetary donations are, of course, always welcome (our PayPal link can be found toward the top right corner of this page).

We are also in need of volunteers, experienced landscapers, indoor/outdoor gardening assistants, teachers for various classes/programs and helpers for various other projects.

If able to offer any of the above mentioned items or services, please contact NYC Lorax Community via email (NYCLorax at gmail dot com) or by telephone at 347.560.TREE (8733)

Please visit us on the web by clicking the following links:

Official Website

FaceBook

Twitter

Alignment With A Higher Purpose: Update and Current Statement of Intent

2009-09-17T12:22:00.000-07:00

Many of my old vegan friends are now no longer vegan or vegetarian.

For awhile I actually stopped referring to myself as vegan, simply because most of the vegans I had been meeting were really unhealthy junk food addicts and I had adapted to an entirely raw, organic diet (which is a totally different thing, in many ways). However, I've been meeting a lot of stupid raw foodists as of late who have made me realise that my diet and lifestyle are still very much vegan from a political standpoint.

I was raw before the current three-year mark began as well, but I began eating cooked food again for awhile immediately following the deaths of my closest family members when drinking alcohol and eating loads of noodles/soya/white potatoes seemed an ideal way of handling my grief.

Backward and silly, I know.

Hindsight...

I now do a great deal of work for Food for Life Global, the largest veg*n food relief charity in the entire world.

My current jobs as assistant to the international director and executive director of New York operations have afforded me the freedom to expand upon my own raw foodism as a project of sorts (http://livingffl.org). Living Food for Life focuses upon educating the public about eating a raw, plant based diet for optimum nutrition, as well as offering them opportunities to gain practical experience through direct contact and interaction with their food as an organic, everyday entity (as opposed to the current mass-mindset which separates people from their food and therefore makes the entire process something of a mystery).

I have been working diligently with Paul Turner, FFL's international director, on getting funding and a proper setup right now for the Living Food project to be able to stand on its own as a separate charity with a separate board of directors. This has become my main point of focus since the current board of directors for the main charity has opted to set aside our proposal as an unnecessary expense, but time is of the essence as the onset of Codex Alimentarius (dangerous UN trade sanction) compliance standards becomes mandatory on 31st of December of this year.

We are currently reworking the same proposal for submission to several other grassroots organisations in order to see who may be interested in partnering with the Living Food project and potentially combining forces with them in order to expand the conscious community even more. The project is currently based upon a community outreach prototype (all set up to begin immediately) which is all about raw food, wildcrafting/foraging and educating families on how to obtain and prepare healthy, nutritious food now and after Codex laws go into full effect...

There have also been some serious discussions in various related political circles about regulating personal gardens and imposing hefty fines upon gardeners and homeowners who are not in compliance with said regulations (search "H.R. 875" and related "s.425" by way of either websearch or by visiting http://house.gov, http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-875 or referring to this article ), so now there's talk in certain corners of the community about an imminent "food underground."

...Hence our need to rapidly begin this program (and possibly to establish a new non-profit) before all of the absurd and dangerous regulations on food/supplementation come to pass.

Contact points are currently being solidified and relationships being built with already established projects, organisations and pioneers.

I've been in contact with Rima Laibow and the Ralph Fucetola (chief officers and trustee of Natural Solutions Foundation (http://healthfreedomusa.org)) about possibly partnering with this particular aspect of charity.

They seem to be incredibly open to the idea of combining out efforts and have been quite receptive regarding the ideas presented in relation to such.

I'm also in contact with people who are directly involved with Food Not Bombs and am working on establishing contact with other related projects, vegan and community outreach organisations, some of which include the following:

Sustainable South Bronx: http://www.ssbx.org/

Majora Carter: (founder of SSBx)

http://www.majoracartergroup.com/our-story.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majora_Carter

Green Workers Cooperative:

http://greenworker.coop/website_j/index.php

The Cloud Institute: (they do a lot of work on sustainability education; Building of school curriculums, etc.)

http://www.sustainabilityed.org/

...And I currently have an extremely capable and well-connected agent set in place to establish contact with members of the Environmental Justice Committee in regard to setting up a meeting.

I'm actually becoming something of what many people might refer to as a "Food Nazi."

I do not wish to buy anything from shops at all anymore, so we've spent our entire Spring and Summer cultivating an amazing garden which includes many heirloom, fruit-producing plants and herbs (amongst other things which have been obtained in the wild and nurtured in our little haven). We have also been ordering certain types of produce directly from organic farms and picking out a lot of incredibly nice locally grown items from farmers markets around NYC.

Restaurant owners seem more interested in keeping the cashflow happening with minimal effort, so I've been avoiding patronising most of the local eateries in the area for the same reason I do not care for store-bought produce.

Also, in my personal opinion (and that of many others in the area) there are really only a couple of truly vegan restaurants in NYC, despite the fact that there seems to be a lot of "vegan food" around here. Many restaurants are inclined to use glue traps and have a tendency to skimp on organic produce from trusted local farms in favour of purchasing in bulk from commercial farms (many of which are not truly organic or even vegan producers).

I wouldn't consider them to be vegan at all based on these factors, although some may be more vegan and/or organic than others.

In any case, the plants currently growing in the tiny plot we've managed to create in NYC are the main reason I'm trying to get my project off the ground on its own, even if FFL ends up opting out of supporting or funding it as one of their own charity projects.

My intention is to secure a safe, warm, well-lit space before the first frost arrives here to destroy our green children.

I've managed to locate an ideal location nearby which seems absolutely perfect for this project.

http://www.halstead.com/detail.aspx?id=1654023

This property has an amazing kitchen and SO MUCH light!

The small "bedroom" would make an ideal growing environment with the proper lighting and temperature control equipment in place, although such equipment may not be necessary as the house itself bears a very cool layout which maximizes the outside light.

The kitchen is also absolutely amazing. It is as if it were specifically created for a food charity to use, from the layout and setup of equipment right down to minute details in things such as decor:

All of the handles on the cabinets and drawers are little forks, spoons and knives...

It's so cute!

All appliances are brand new with plastic intact, so no meat has ever touched anything in the place (making it a totally clean, completely "kosher" environment).

I have personally been manifesting like mad for that place.

Another of my most important goals focuses upon setting aside a space for growth and saving all seeds and cuttings from our current family of organic heirloom plants.

Ideally, I would like to be offer young offspring from already existing plants to people who wish to begin cultivating their own gardens.

Essentially, I would quite literally like to "become" The Lorax.

It has become an extremely important goal for me to be in a position to assist those who want to help themselves through what's about to set in...

And through this program I am encouraging people to switch to an entirely plant-based diet by way of example, education and direct experience.

It's sort of intriguing to me when I stop to consider how "right" all of this feels.

It's as if it's been my life's purpose all along.

Another major part of what I'd like to see happen with the project is to have it entirely populated with like-minded individuals from various walks of life/stations in life so that we can form our own community and become entirely self-sufficient.

I would love to see my NY/NorthEast US community prototype expanded by others throughout the world (in ways such as starting new branches of the charity/mission everywhere and see conscious communities popping up all over the place which are based upon a working model).