Hippies send help to New Orleans

Hippies have been much maligned in recent weeks, so I think this should be passed along.

Plenty International and "The Farm" to aid Katrina survivors, (more below fold)

(from an email 9/4)
I've been in contact with Stephen Gaskin of The Farm, and he confirmed that Plenty International has sent a bus full of supplies to the new
Orleans area and intend to bring back people to house at The Farm and other places in nearby Nashville. They are accepting donations, and they are well known for intelligent use of charity funds and good work in disaster relief: they laid miles of fresh water pipeline for the Guatemala earthquake victims, set up an award-winning ambulance service in Brooklyn when they had an ambulance shortage crisis, and have helped tornado victims in the American East for decades. Their< address is Plenty, Box 394, Summertown, TN 38483.

Currently their bus and people are outside Covington, which is across the lake north of New Orleans. They have a load of water for the Camp Casey people who have based their aid operation there. They will spend enough time there Sunday to get a better idea of the needs. They have experienced construction guys in Humbolt County, CA with trucks, tools and equipment standing by for information about anything they can do to help. These are folks that help manage big music festivals in northern California like Reggae on the River (30,000 people).

The Farm:

It started as a commune in the 70s and has evolved into much more.

Old Farm Hands:
Their parents left San Francisco 30 years ago to build a utopia in rural Tennessee. Now some of the products of that grand experiment -- their children -- have come back.

"Who are these people who have managed to live so well on so little while contributing so much to vegetarians and others worldwide? In truth, they're a bunch of aging hippies.

"This community, so far ahead of its time, is the Farm, an experiment in communal living that began in 1971 when most of the current residents were still college students in San Francisco."

-- Sharon Bloyd-Peshkin, writing in The Vegetarian Times
http://www.thefarm.org/lifestyle/index.html