InvitingCommunityLinks

Anita Roddick on supporting local economies - http://www.ourplanet.com/imgversn/134/roddick.html

"We can encourage the resurgence of interest in localization in our own backyards � the farmers� markets, the painstakingly won exceptions from European Union trade rules that seem to outlaw local purchasing by local authorities. We can buy fresh food locally.

We can make sure that school dinners, hospital meals, council supplies, are grown and produced locally. We can look at product labels and purchase accordingly.

And we can extend the right to produce a diversity of local foods to the developing world � because world trade regulations tend to be enforced more rigorously on the poor than on the rich.

Most of all, we can shift the weight of regulation and subsidy that demands that the communities of the world trade with each other � whether they have the means to do so or not. We can turn back the processes that are undermining their ability to meet their own needs by forcing them to contract out, to trade, to swap tried and tested diversity for monoculture and the desperate search for customers.

This insidious process undermines the legitimacy and equality of trade. It makes it an instrument of slavery rather than an instrument of betterment. And it is reminiscent of a puritanical horror of peoples and communities who do not need to work as hard as our masters feel they should."

Sustainable Sonoma County - http://www.sustainablesonoma.org

"Sustainable Sonoma County is a learning and action community that connects, inspires, and empowers people to align their thinking and action with their deep need for a life-affirming and sustainable world. SSC's projects, events, workshops, research, and publications engage people in the creation of an ecological, equitable and prosperous society."

Fellow Open Space guy Jeff Aiken is involved in this project.

Punks and Munx - http://theoutcast.com/punxnmonx/main.shtml

"We are 6 people who share a small 3 bedroom house in the backwaters of Los Angeles (Tujunga). All of us that live in the house share an interest in eastern christian spirituality and mysticism of the Orthodox faith. We are artists, musicians, and activists.

Some people get confused when we explain how we live. We are not just renting some rooms to some friends, or trying to make our house "the hang out" but are actually trying something very foreign to our culture, and that is actually living in community. Its a bit of an experiment but would be much more fitting to call it a mission. The people here reject the idea that in individuality we experience the fullness of life. A phrase we have taken as our own is "Unity, not conformity". In other words: We believe strongly that each person is unique in body and spirit, but we also believe the depth of who we are can best be experienced through eachother. This also means helping eachother financially, spiritually, emotionally and in all other ways.

So while we all have our own jobs, and interests, we come together for dinners, for vespers, for music and art and activism, and just because we like eachother. We don't know whats going to happen next, but we invite you to watch and get involved in any way you can.

Which brings us outside just our small house into our punx n' monx community. at the house, anybody and everybody is welcome, and we have a few close friends who make it more of a great place to be."