Tryon Life Community Farm

The TLC Farm Story
By Emily Aronowitz
July 2007

Tryon Life Community Farm

TLC Farm has received a great deal of media coverage, both during the drama of the eviction proceedings and as human interest stories and photos covering our programs. The following is a sampling of newspaper articles; we have also been on both KBOO and OPB, several TV stations, and public access cable.

• Lake Oswego Review, Jan 24, 2008:
  Review website
• Willamette Week, Jan 16, 2008:
  WWeek website. This is the most positive Rogue of the Week report ever; check the exceptional comments, including kudos from the DEQ! Also see the followup WWire web-only story on our ReCode meeting.
• Portland Tribune, Jan 4, 2008:
  Tribune website, including lively comments.
• Lake Oswego Review, Aug 9, 2007:
  Review website
• Oregonian, Aug 1, 2007:
  Oregonian website
• Lake Oswego Review, July 20, 2006:
  Review website
  (Please note that despite the second paragraph, TLC Farm did not raise twice the necessary amount but just barely enough to save the land.)
• Portland Tribune, June 22, 2006, Southwest section:
  Tribune website (section titled "Farm, community thrive together" near end of article)
• in business: creating sustainable enterprises and communities, May/June 2006
  in business website
• Oregonian, January 4, 2006, editorial:
  Oregonian website
• Oregonian, January 2, 2006, front page Metro section:
  Oregonian website
• Multnomah Village Post, December, front page:
  Post website
• Portland Tribune, November 29, 2005, page A2:
  Tribune website
• Lake Oswego Review, November 17, 2005, front page:
  Review website
• Oregonian, October 27, 2005, Steve Duin's column on front page Metro section:
  Oregonian website
• Portland Tribune, March 29 2005:
  scanned article or Tribune website.
  (This article contains several factual errors.)
• street roots, March 17 2005, cover story:
  street roots website
• Lake Oswego Review, March 3 2005, front page:
  scanned image or Review website (teaser only)
• Oregonian, March 1 2005, page B2:
  scanned image
• Oregonian, January 19 2005, page C2:
  scanned image

TLC Farm as a non-profit organization has accomplished a great deal with very little operating income. At the same time, we have raised a very large amount of money in order to protect the land we occupy from development (see our history).

In progress!

Our fabulous writing intern from Green Mountain College in Vermont, Emily Aronowitz, has just put the finishing touches on the enlightening Farm Story. Thank you Emily for all your work here this summer!

You may see a technical overview of the land acquisition, whereby this land was saved.

An overview of some partners with our organization, and how we work with them.

For example:

Cedar Moon

The intentional community that co-manages the land with TLC Farm. Currently has about 15 adult and 3 children members.

OSALT

The land trust that leases the land under a 99-year ground lease that requires the land to be used sustainably and educationally.

Shining Star School

TLC Farm's organizational structure is designed to empower people to become part of the decisions and actions of embodying a new world.

Participants

(A great variety of people participate in our work, in many ways. We are asking as many of you as possible to send in short bios, so that visitors to the site can get a feel for who we are. Please add or revise, or send it in an email!)

Brenna Bell. Brenna brings to her work tenyears of organizing experience, as well as an extensive background in environmental law and education. She has spent many years in the Tryon Creek watershed: first as a student at Lewis & Clark College, where she self-designed a major in Social Ecology; next as a counselor at the Tryon Creek State Park summer day camp; then as a student at Lewis & Clark Law School, where she was President of the Student Bar Association and received an Environmental and Natural Resources Certificate; and finally as a resident and core organizer with Tryon Life Community Farm. Brenna has worked for numerous non-profits, including the NEDC, the Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center, and she is currently the part-time staff attorney for Willamette Riverkeeper. Brenna serves as the president of the board of directors for TLC Farm, and is also on the board of the NW Constitutional Rights Center. She is also blessed to be raising her daughter, Ember, in the strong and supportive TLC Farm community.

Hope Medford: Hope is a certified professional midwife, having attended over 300 births; a successful painter with a solo gallery show under her belt; and a passionate teacher of art and hand-drumming. Her background in social work -- she has been employed at both a hospice and a domestic violence shelter -- deepens her commitment to healing broken lives and communities. Part Cherokee, she also has a strong interest in indigenous ways, and participated for nine years in the Global Peace Walk uniting tribes and races. She has extensive experience with Lakota and Pueblo ceremonies, and has lead ritual at the Hanuman temple in Taos, NM. Currently, she is helping build the environmental education program at TLC Farm, linking arts and the environment.

J. Brush. Brush is a writer, organizer, videographer, and computer consultant, with a long history of participation in cooperative communities. He has spent much of the last five years working with peace and social justice organizations to improve communications, strategic thinking, and coordination. Most recently, he has worked with the Green Bloc to document their direct actions linking global justice convergences with long-term urban permaculture and community gardening. He has also worked in South Africa, building relationships between US activist communities and SA poor peoples' movements struggling for community empowerment and basic services. He has been published in a variety of periodicals, and presented a plenary paper at the 2002 Radical Philosophy Association conference at Brown University. Currently, he is focused on developing TLC Farm's information technology infrastructure and publicity materials.

Bonsai Matt James: Matt has been a bonsai practitioner since 1984; he had a small bonsai nursery by age 15, began teaching at 16, and has owned and operated a nursery and landscape business since 1999. His university studies focused on educational arts and photography, as well as music and teaching. Now, he is a certified permaculture designer, nursery owner and successful professional artist, and has wide experience in the fields of native and exotic bonsai cultivation, permaculture design and practice, landscaping & gardening with natives and exotics, stone masonry & sculpture, tincture & salve preparation from wild-crafted herbs, natural building, earthen oven construction and baking, and photography. His long-term plans are to continue living and working at Try/on Life Community Farm and teaching the broader community how to live more sustainably on the land.

Matt Gordon: Matt is a gardener, musician, teacher, and lover of the Willamette Valley, his home bioregion. After leaving Oberlin College with an Environmental Studies degree in 2002, he completed two AmeriCorps service years in environmental and garden education with the Northwest Service Academy and Growing Gardens in the Portland area. He has worked with local educational organizations such as Schools Uniting Neighborhoods and Wolftree while continuing to practice and learn about gardening and permaculture design. Matt completed a Permaculture Design Course in Eugene in 2006. He moved to Cedar Moon (the intentional community at TLC Farm) in June of 2006 to further his practical experience of sustainable living and contribute to this vibrant project. Matt is one of TLC Farm's garden coordinators and a member of the chicken and goat teams. Matt plays with several local bands and also freelances as a sound engineer. Come say hello to Matt on a Friday garden workparty day!

More coming!