At around 10 AM on Saturday the 10th of August, our community space at the Grassroots Center burned to the ground.
No people or animals were inside, but the entire 4,500 square foot building was gone in about 15 minutes. The lights in the event space had shorted out for a few seconds the night before, but then had appeared to be fine. We suspect that the short smoldered in the sawdust insulation in the ceiling until the next morning and then caught, but we’re not likely to ever be sure what caused it.
We lost a lot of what we do. All of our commercial kitchen equipment and the half-completed kitchen itself, all of our arts and protest production gear; projectors, computers and presentation equipment; a one-ton cast iron printing press from 1901 and all the lead type; years of protest and educational art works by students and communities; chainsaws and forestry tools, all of our farming gear, an extensive shop of power tools and construction equipment of all kinds from our solidarity construction projects plus my own professional carpentry tools; and the beautiful timber frame back barn which housed our animals in the past. We lost a lot of our physical capacity to convene people and support them in working together on their own interests.
But we’re still here. Friends from other corners of the Movement and the country have come around, joining the board, making food together, staying positive and telling stories of all our work together. The team is already standing up the recovery and rebuilding plan. I can’t imagine what it would be like to face this mess, both physically and metaphysically, without their support. It should also be said that the local firefighters and emergency responders showed up fast and worked hard all day to get the fire out, and the rest of our buildings are still standing due to their work. Thank you Walden, Cabot, Marshfield, Plainfield, and East Montpelier fire departments and EMS, for everything.
Unfortunately, though the barns were in the midst of repairs, insurance underwriters refused to insure the building until the work was done, which we hoped would be early next year.
So where does all that leave us? The Grassroots Center board and organizers are rolling up their sleeves and facilitating the recovery and rebuilding plan. We’ve already secured a 5,000 square foot hoop barn from a donor in Barnard, Vermont We need funds for dumpsters and a skid steer to clear the debris, a crane and truck to move the new barn, and to replace the lost equipment and supplies to renew our ability to do the work.
YOUR DONATION AT THIS CRITICAL TIME IS DEEPLY FELT AND APPRECIATED.
Tax-exempt donations for supplies for our ongoing programming in regenerative agriculture and community organizing can be made through the Global Justice Ecology Project.
Please consider making a personal donation for the greater need of rebuilding the community barn space. While not eligible for tax-exempt donations, this effort is key to our recovery. These donations can be made via Venmo @grassrootscenter.
THANK YOU
This project was founded to help organize mass social movements for economic, racial, agricultural and climate Justice, and to support allied liberation work of all kinds.
We identify organizing as “organizing people to organize people to organize people”. We promote the need for a viral movement-building strategy, while fostering collaborative projects and on-ramps to leadership and democratic structure throughout. Basically moving people to move people to get back in control of our agriculture and our economy at a large enough scale to turn the tides of our futures.
We educate and train, organize and coordinate, and mobilize for protests, events, campaigns, work parties, workshops, and learning exchanges. We seize any opportunity to help knit allies into networks and organized work for structural social change. The common thread in our work is food sovereignty. Growing food, and helping people grow food, to regenerate land and feed people is not only essential for food security and food justice, it’s possibly the most promising vehicle for realizing true democracy. It is the crossroads of so much thought and activity, and economic and ecological resilience. Realizing the dream of people deciding everything about the production and distribution of all the food in their community will have profound positive impacts through every aspect of life and economy. Organizing toward this goal and connecting with the soil is not only strategically necessary, but enriching emotionally and socially for every age, cultural background, or class.