Acorn Community Report

Well, 2008 has been a wild year for Acorn. We've seen some significant changes in our membership and our businesses.

Seed businesses across the USA have been seeing phenomenal growth rates this last year and our own Southern Exposure Seed Exchange has been no stranger to the trend. Overall, sales have increased by something like 50% for the year with some of our historically slower months seeing their sales double or more over last year. It could be rising fuel and food prices, a maturing organics and green movement, all the promotion that we've been doing this last year, or just a good old fear of the apocalypse. Or some combination thereof. Speaking of promotion, this year, on the first Saturday in September, we held our second annual Heritage Harvest Festival with Monticello, Whole Foods, and the Master Gardeners. We fretted and worried when the tropical storm decided to roll through our area precisely on Saturday morning but were stunned when an estimated 1000+ people came out and braved the rain with us. This year also saw us purchasing Garden Medicinals and Culinaries, a seed company specializing in herbs, off the same fellow we purchased SESE off of some 10 years ago.

On the membership front, we bid adieu to the Weaver family this August. They had been members here for three and a half years, after uprooting themselves from Madison, WI, to repopulate Acorn after the population crash of 2004. They had two children while here at Acorn and have moved on to central PA to start a new life. Just before they left, long time veteran of Twin Oaks, River, and returning Acorner, Marielle, joined us. They have brought a lot of experience and energy with them and are bringing change here every day. We have also recently added ex-Twin Oakers Thomas and Emily to our ranks. We did, however, lose new member Joan who found love and is following her long held dream of homesteading in a mud hut. She and her partner Courtney are looking into joining Red Earth Farms in the spring.

Although generally a quiet place we've pulled off a couple fabulous parties this year. We celebrated our 15th anniversary this year on April 1st and had so many people over celebrating with us that we literally filled every square foot of our dining/common room with dining friends and communards. Not so long ago, Joan organized a surprise 60th birthday party for founding member Ira, and a bunch of old friends of hers showed up and reminisced and told stories for hours and hours.

At any rate, it's an exciting time to live at Acorn. Our membership is cohesive and growing. Our business is booming. The infrastructure is rising out of the sea of entropy. Space is getting competitive. Some of our friends have taken all this data and begun to refer to an Acorn Renaissance. Whatever it is, it works for us.