Green House
While our new property on Spink Road is already buzzing with our new Farm to Families garden boxes, caretaker John, and the business office for myCalaveras/myAmador.com, we are working hard on the bigger dream…THE GREEN HOUSE!
In a small town like ours, we all know the importance of taking care of our own. The Blue Mountain Coalition for Youth & Families is excited to embark on a project that will help us all learn to provide for ourselves and our community in new fundamental ways. The Green House will be an eco-living center that incorporates a variety of sustainable living practices while meeting social service needs.
Revive & Releaf, a non-profit organization dedicated to the beautification of West Point and the creation of a community garden, has become part of the BMCYF. Through this merger, the Blue Mountain Coalition for Youth & Families has acquired the community garden property on Spink Road. Our dream for this land is to create a model of environmental and social responsibility in a West Point community project.
The Green House will provide temporary housing and services for local youth and families with nowhere else to go, while helping them to build the skills and support to make it on their own. We intend for this project to be a working model of sustainable-living technologies which showcases and expands the community garden, generates employment opportunities for local builders and youth, creates space for new businesses (such as MyCalaveras/MyAmador.com), offers accommodations for visiting students, teachers, or interns, and much more.
Although this will be a long process, developing the Green House will create opportunities for all of us to learn ways to reduce the long-term cost and impact of maintaining a household or business. This grass-roots endeavor will provide the chance to participate in hands-on development of sustainable-living practices such as, earth-building, solar power, passive heating and cooling, grey water systems, composting solutions, and gardening skills.