Community Cultivators

Project Type

Project Summary

Helping individuals realize the abundant potential of community through the cultivation of ~ mind, body and soil ~

Project Description

Community Cultivators is a grassroots collective by and for the community. Through the application of permaculture we strive to cultivate an abundance of food, water, shelter and fun.

Our Mission -- Empowering individuals, connecting neighbors and cross-pollinating ideas in order to cultivate a healthy, vital community of cooperation and self-actualization through education and engagement.

Our Vision -- An abundance of autonomously interdependent communities collaboratively enhancing our understanding of ecological science and humanity’s role as stewards to our environment.

A Brief History -- Community Cultivators grew out of a proposal to the Rhizome Collective in 2010. The proposal was an attempt to build a community resource center at the Rhizome’s brownfield site, grove field, that sadly did not come to fruition. From the resulting momentum of our proposal attempt we shifted our energy into a series of garden install and potluck events. The most notable of these events spanned three days and brought together 30+ volunteers to re-landscape the front yard of Sunflower Co-op in honor of the housing cooperative's birthday. 

That same summer, with the help of ape99.org, we also organized a free aquaponics workshop at The Permaculture Park. Aside from a small potluck or two, this was our first substantial event at The Park. This event, along with the Sunflower Co-op Blitz and our very first garden install potluck, was video documented a posted on our youtube channel. 

After a very active summer, three videos, the birthing of our blog and several Sunday Potlucks, our next major production was putting together an art instillation for Art Outside in October of 2010. The result of this project was a two pallet Community Cultivators sign built entirely out of recycled materials, a demonstration sized miniature aquaponics system and tons of great memories. This event also was successful in helping us grow our exposure.

Over the winter our potlucks continued but there was little event-like activities such as what we had produced the previous months. All that changed quite dramatically as the weather warmed. 

A handful of us spent a few Sundays at the Permaculture Park helping to build the MulchCrete hoop-house and filming the "Just add water..." project. Suddenly, the momentum picked up and before we knew it, every sunday was met with new projects and new people excited to help cultivate this burgeoning community. Our work days grew to having anywhere between 10 to 30 cultivators and the potlucks expanded that number by 50 or more on any given sunday evening. 

At this point, the community at the end of Pennsylvania Ave began a rather dramatic transition. Taking over and renovating the space across the street that had been used and abused by careless tenants for several years was a trying endeavor. Many challenges arose through this process and all along the way we found the community was their to meet those challenges with us.

Nearly simultaneously, a new site became available on Pennsylvania Ave. This new site would later be dubbed "The White House Austin" and renovations begun shortly thereafter to transform the once dilapidated and abandon house into a full on art gallery and studio space.
With the community reaching critical-mass on Penn. Hill, it became clear that we had tapped into something very special. Community Cultivators had performed just what the name was intended to inspire and now we look to take our show on the road.

We believe what's been done on Pennsylvania Ave., however unique and inspiring, is nothing extraordinary. And we intend make this evident through replicating our work within other neighborhoods while continuing to serve and engage the community that helped to start it all.

This brings us to today and the communities we each represent individually. Each of us holds an opportunity to cultivate community within our neighborhoods. We cannot wait for others to do this important work for us... you can be the next Community Cultivator on your street, we'll help!

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