Feminist Cooperatives for Vigorous Aging

About Feminist Cooperatives for Vigorous Aging

Who We Are

A Feminist Cooperative for Vigorous Aging is a self-governing organization of 4-20 self-chosen adults who live in close geographic proximity to one another and are dedicated to anticipate and provide for the changing needs of co-op members to grow old and age in place with the most vibrant, meaningful, and companionable quality of life, from vigorous old age to death.

Aging folks often believe that they will not need care or assume that family and friends will be able to manage their care indefinitely. However, over the long haul that is aging, “Call me if you need anything” is unrealistic, unreliable, and not at all helpful.

At its core, this model formalizes a system where members assist one another with specific tasks to support mutual independence, while simultaneously garnering resources for professional care when individual needs surpass what cooperative members can provide.

Co-op members are interdependent and commit to assisting one another with the tasks that enable other members to remain independently in their homes while collectively planning financially and logistically to share professional caregivers when member’s needs require the skills of trained home health aides.

Co-op members recognise the universal inevitability of age-related decline and death and the dearth of affordable and affirmative options for positively managing this time of life. The mission of Cooperatives for Vigorous Aging is to provide one another with optimal personal agency, physical activity, comfort, and companionship.

Members approach this part of life with the assumption that some or all members will experience physical and/or cognitive decline. The interdependent, realistically forward thinking, and task-oriented nature of a Cooperative for Vigorous Aging is organized to plan for and manage this wide array of aging-related eventualities.

The first distinguishing characteristic of a Self Governing Cooperative for Vigorous Aging is the commitment co-op members make to assist one another with the tasks and future planning that enables other members to remain independently in their homes. This personal commitment to fellow co-op members and the system that grows from this interdependence is fundamental to the model and is organized before members start losing functional abilities.

The second distinguishing characteristic is that members of each co-op determine the specific guidelines and systems for the operation of their co-op. Rather than facility owners and CEOs making rules, self-governance enables co-op members to determine and change policies and procedures to suit their particular population and preferences.

Cooperatives for Vigorous Aging have at least 6 members who can access one another via foot or golf cart, making car driving unnecessary. Incoming co-op members are functionally independent and physically and mentally able-bodied. Co-ops can be created almost anywhere people reside in close physical proximity to one another, generally in their existing homes. Not having to move from their homes is preferable to most seniors, less traumatic than moving to a facility, and far less costly.

Neighborhoods, apartment complexes, condominium complexes, co-housing communities, or sub-divisions are excellent places to form cooperative groups because of their natural geographic proximity and members’ familiarity with the environment. At the same time, cooperatives operate independent of the apartment building or condo complex in which they are located.

Rather than staying in their existing homes, some people will create or join a cooperative in a specific location. One example is a farm-based co-op outside of Asheville, NC. on which members will build their respective homes on 3.5 acres of shared property. Members of that rural co-op will organize and operate in the same way as other Cooperatives for Vigorous Aging.

Replicability

The mission of Cooperatives for Vigorous Aging is to enable each of us to grow old and age in place with optimal personal agency, physical activity, comfort, and companionship by anticipating and providing for the changing needs of co-op members. This mission compels us to approach this part of our lives with the assumption that some or all of us will experience physical and/or cognitive decline.

A hope for neighborhood-based Cooperatives for Vigorous Aging is that the model be replicated in communities everywhere. Over time the logistics, documents, and other functional mechanics will be refined and shared so that the establishment and implementation of the model becomes easier, more familiar, and less cumbersome than it currently is among pioneers of the model. Optimally, Feminist Cooperatives for Vigorous Aging will become a common option for generations of aging people

Background and Rationale

Background and Rationale for A Non-traditional Model for Elder Living and Dying

Decades of personal and professional hospice and geriatric care taught me many things. The two most important and compelling facts are:

The existing options for affordable and uplifting elder living and dying are abysmal and disempowering to old people.
Relying for possibly years of care, entirely on spouses, offspring, and close friends without explicit commitments to provide that care, can be exhausting, inadequate, disappointing, and even devastating for all involved.

Given the universal inevitability of age-related decline and death and the dearth of affordable and affirmative options for positively managing this time of life, it is critical for us to take responsibility for creating better options for ourselves and those we love. The mission of this co-operative community model is to anticipate and provide for the changing needs of co-op members, to grow old and age in place with the most vibrant, meaningful, and companionable quality of life, from vigorous old age to death. The model is called, “Feminist Cooperatives for Vigorous Aging.”

Problems with Existing Options for Aging and Dying

Anyone who has been involved with seniors knows that enjoyable options for affordable residential aging are scarce or non-existent. I was a hospice and geriatric social worker for 16 years. In the course of my work I engaged with patients in every setting available to seniors. These included:

skilled nursing facilities,
assisted living facilities,
independent living facilities,
personal care homes,
patients living in their own homes by themselves
or with a family member,
or with full or part time professional caregivers.

During six of those years I also looked after my 90+ year old parents. Despite my years of professional experience, I jostled my folks in and out of three different facilities before bringing them to a street level condo downstairs from the one my wife and I were renting, with private, 24/7 caregivers, whom I hired and supervised while working full time.

None of these arrangements was ideal. However, for better and for worse, I learned a great deal from those intense and maddening experiences about the myriad ways people age and die, and about the implications, limitations, expenses, and cultures of the various care environments. Throughout that time I thought about the kind of situation I want for my now 69 year old self as I inevitably decline.

Some Lessions

When seniors enter any kind of “facility,” be it Independent Living or Skilled Nursing we seniors and our family members risk losing a significant amount of autonomy and control over our lives. Facilities are highly regulated by state and federal guidelines and requirements. Additionally, facilities have their own rules and concerns about legal liabilities, social decorum, and costs of operations. Procedures facilities employ to minimize their legal and regulatory vulnerabilities are often not in our (the residents’) best interests or in line with what we want. This was magnified during the COVID pandemic.

One example of this is facilities’ insistence about sending a resident to the ER if the resident falls or runs a high fever. Some seniors/families prefer this way of managing falls and fevers and want all precautions to be taken and possible treatments to be administered. Some of us are determined to avoid ER care, suffer from dementia, or are in frail condition and are unable to speak up for ourselves in the ER. Regardless of your inclinations about your situation, the facility makes the decision about calling 911 and sending you to the ER.

As a hospice social worker and primary caregiver to my parents, I wrangled mightily with facility staff and emergency medical technicians not to send my parents to the ER where they would face an automatic bombardment of tests, x-rays, lengthy wait times, and invasive interventions that were frequently inappropriate for and sometimes harmful to them.

Chronic understaffing and inadequate compensation are other factors that undermine personalized and compassionate care in eldercare facilities. Most facilities are owned and operated by for profit corporations that are responsible to the financial concerns of their shareholders and CEOs rather than to the residents, and their direct caregivers in facilities, Certified Nursing Assistants.

Even though personal care, resident enrichment activities, and pleasing meals are the most important factors determining residents’ negative or positive experience in their facility homes, CNAs, Resident Programs and kitchen staff, almost always women of color, are among the lowest paid workers in any profession in the country.

As I think of what I want for myself it is clear that the existing models are both unpalatable and unaffordable. Many people are unaware that Medicare pays for medical care wherever we reside, Medicare does not pay for room and board which are (the actual charges facilities charge for people to live there. I am suggesting a radically different and possibly preferable option: A non-traditional model for elder living and dying.

The Neighborhood Model involves people living in their current abode and organizing their cooperative with friends and neighbors in their apartment building, condo complex, subdivision, or walkable neighborhood.

If one is fortunate enough to have lived in the same home or neighborhood for many years, either alone or with a partner, leaving that home and its privacy at age 60+ can be daunting or unwanted. Many people do not want to uproot themselves from a familiar, possibly beloved, affordable, and perhaps paid off home to move into a completely new place and living arrangement? The same applies to people living near or with other family members.

The neighborhood model enables people to remain in their existing home and environment while organizing their evolving care needs with their existing neighbors.

The Site-Specific Residential Model involves people moving to a particular location in order to create a site specific cooperative with fellow residents. I am currently organizing a rural Feminist Cooperative for Vigorous Aging for myself and compatible others whose timeframes are similar to my own. The Weaverville Cooperative for Vigorous Aging is located in the mountains of Western North Carolina within 30 minutes of Asheville and four hours of Atlanta.

The 3.5 acres of woods and pasture land is geared to mini-farm living. The four to six residents will renovate existing cabins or build their own small home while sharing the barn, garage/workshop, pasture, and small four-site campground with water and electric hookups, a shed, and a bathhouse.

It is called Old Gal’s Landing. It is anticipated that the residents of the Weaverville Cooperative will manage one or two small businesses to augment monthly dues that finance the maintenance and improvements to the collectively owned property.

Two Primary Operational Strategies

Whether gradually over time or suddenly as a result of injury, old age tends to intrude on self-sufficiency and independence. This universal reality necessitates preparing for the various manifestations of aging.

When starting a neighborhood-based or residentially-based cooperative it would be advantageous for all incoming co-0p members to be (relatively speaking) fully functional physically, emotionally, financially, and cognitively. This enables members to start from similar health and functional circumstances. Over time, however, the co-op will organize itself to employ the first of two primary operational strategies

The two operational strategies are:

Independence Support and
Professional Caregiving

Independence Support

Members help other members with the following non-medical tasks that, when needed, can enable a person to maintain their independence in their own home. This assistance can be temporary, such as post surgical or injury, or on-going, as with general decline or chronic health problems. They include:

transportation (especially at night)
errands
meal prep
medication management
bill paying
laundry
sorting through mail
Housekeeping
accompaniment to MD visits and other outings
range of motion and other exercises as instructed by a medical professional, most commonly needed when recovering from surgeries or injuries.
advocating/keeping company during hospital stays

Elders are most often referred to a care facility when their hygiene starts slipping (skipping tooth brushing, not showering, putting on dirty clothes), their house cleaning deteriorates, they don’t eat well, ignore bills and other important mail, forget to take medication or take meds incorrectly, become unable to take care of business or errands requiring driving, etc. Function and awareness can decline because of depression, forgetfulness, or loneliness. However, consistent, but brief, daily visits from co-op members can provide residents with the reminders and assistance needed for a member to stay in their home, rather than moving to a facility.

Professional Caregiving

When one or more members needs a higher level of care cCertified Nursing Assistants, (CNAs) or Home Health Aides, (HHAs) are trained to assist elders with activities of daily living (ADLs), particularly if a member is bed or chair-bound. These include hands on:

incontinence care
feeding
Transferring (from bed to chair, etc.)
toileting
bathing
dressing

A shared care arrangement enables co-op members to share the cost of professional caregivers.

Sharing the services of professional aides enables aides to provide assistance to several people during an 8-12 hour shift. Most care agencies and individual aides have 4+ hour minimum visit times in order to justify travel to one person’s home. An 8-hour shift can cost approximately $300 per day which is extremely costly for one individual requiring daily aide care. However individuals often do not require that many hours of continuous care or only require intermittent care throughout the day or night.

For example, if a person can walk and manage their own meals but is incontinent of bowel or bladder, or needs assistance to go for a daily walk outside, a 15-30 minute aide visit every 2-3 hours is sufficient. An aide caring for one individual is rarely occupied all of the time over a 4-8 hour shift, nor is the aide available for necessary 20 minute incontinent care visits around the clock.

The following is one successful example of shared care.

An independent living facility employed an aide to circulate among numerous residents in increments of 15 minutes to several hours. At 6:30 a.m. the aide spent 90 minutes with Ms. Early Riser, assisting her with a shower and other related hygiene, dressing, making her bed and getting breakfast. She then spent 15 minutes with Ms Med, making sure she took her meds and making her bed. She then moved on to a two-hour visit with Mr. Workout, providing incontinence care, shower, dressing, and taking him for a 30 minute walk. Every two hours she revisited residents needing incontinence care for 15-30 minutes each.

This kind of arrangement could easily be adapted to co-op members in your apartment or condo complex, subdivision, neighborhood, or the residential co-op here in Weaverville.

Clearly, the details of the financial and logistical aspects of employing paid caregivers are many. Collective, creative problem-solving will enable each Feminist Cooperative for Vigorous Aging to determine exactly how they want to finance and manage shared care. Over time, good models for this will evolve and be shared.

To my knowledge, sharing care is the only remotely affordable arrangement that enables elders to stay in our homes when we need professional care, while paying caregivers a living wage and providing them with the length of shift they need to make it worth their while.

Living in close (car-free) geographic proximity enables members easy access to one another for Independence Support, and allows professional caregivers to move comfortably among clients.

Digital Time Tracking

The model of Feminist Cooperatives for Vigorous Aging formalizes a system where members assist one another with specific tasks to support mutual independence, Co-op members commit to assisting one another with the tasks that enable other members to remain independently in their homes.

In order to manage and monitor this arrangement co-ops can use any one of dozens of volunteer/employee time tracking software programs so that residents can log in whenever they

assist another resident
are assisted by another resident
or engage in a task that benefits the community as a whole

The same time bank can be used by professional caregivers when they are employed by the community to assist a resident(s) and/or work on tasks that benefit the community.

This type of software program is easily shared on each person’s phone and provides an easy-to-use mechanism for observing the relative equity of residents’ participation over time. It enables all residents to collectively evaluate the system and suggest changes if needed.

The Weaverville Cooperative for Vigorous Aging

Old Gal’s Landing

We are a group of forward thinking, aging feminists endeavoring to create an intentional, self governing community model for affirmatively managing the joys and universal eventualities of aging, declining, and eventually, dying.

We share a love of the outdoors, animals, social action, community involvement, sustainable living environments, physical activity, laughter, learning, friendship, and a commitment to living lightly on the planet.

Between three and six co-op members purchase shares of and move to this property in Western North Carolina because they want to live rurally and are in circumstances where moving to a small mini farm cooperative makes sense in their lives.

We intend to cultivate a community in which we each commit to the importance of our physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional health as we age, while recognizing the intrinsic limits of prolonging life beyond a normal course of health or life.

Our mission is to anticipate and provide for the changing needs of our members to grow old and age in place with the most vibrant, meaningful, and companionable quality of life.

General Location

This 3.5 acre mini farm is in unincorporated Weaverville, North Carolina and is part of the Beech Community of Weaverville. The Beech Community is one of five Weaverville communities, consisting of small farms, old residential communities, numerous Baptist churches, a fire station, Beech community center and the Reems Creek Country Club.

The town of Weaverville, population 4799, is 7 miles from the property in Buncombe County and is considered part of metropolitan Asheville, NC. Weaverville Exit 21 on Hwy 26 goes southwest 9 miles to Asheville and north to Hot Springs, Marshall, and Johnston City, TN .

A new hospital and medical center are being built in Weaverville increasing the population significantly as it has been burgeoning over the past several years. Reems Creek Road has become inundated with condo complexes. For the most part they are set back from the road. Nonetheless, the road is changing and I heard last summer that they might add shoulders to Reems Creek Road.

From Asheville hwy 26 Exit 21, one takes the 7 mile long Reems Creek Road to its end at Blackberry Inn Road. One half mile down the paved Blackberry Inn Road, turn left onto Mcdaris Cove Road which is a dirt road. Our property is ½ mile up Mcdaris Cove Road.

Surroundings

Mcdaris Cove Road is named for the Mcdaris family who came to the area 135 years ago. The family owned the entire cove, (which we assume they appropriated from the Cherokee Nation) before it was subdivided among family members and some newcomers. Oscar Mcdaris built my house and both cabins in the campground from timbers he cut from these woods and milled himself. He was an expert builder by trade and he and wife Lois raised their family on this property. Three of their five kids are my neighbors while a grandson and his family live across the road. The other 2 kids live elsewhere in Weaverville.

They have all been great neighbors, as long as we don't talk politics. They have looked after me and been wonderful. The Mcdaris and Buckners live along this road between my house and Blackberry Inn Road, mostly in double wides and premanufactured houses. Some have goats, chickens, horses, grassfed beef cows, hunting dogs, or pet dogs. Bruce Mcdaris, Oscar’s nephew, is now the eldest in the cove and the only one remaining from his generation. He is a lovely and generous man.

From my house I can see Bobby’s and Kenneth’s houses. I can also see an out-of-place chateau-like vacation house higher up and sticking out from the mountain across the street from me. Ironically, having lived in cities my whole life, this dirt road is actually the busiest road I’ve lived on. This is because Oscar built this house in 1952 and set it conveniently on the road. At that time Mcdaris Cove Road only went as far as Bobby’s place and there was one road off of it for the Buckner family. Now, however, people live all the way up Mcdaris Cove Road mountain and a newer dirt road branches off in front of my house to go up the mountain across the street.

My neighbor reminds me that we have a micro-climate here in the cove because we are in a valley surrounded by mountains. I should have recognized this just by looking around. A creek runs down the mountain along Mcdaris Cove road and just across the road from my house. Oscar made sure that this road was the responsibility of the state so it is well maintained. Oscar was the boss. He ran everything around here. He also made renowned wine from the grapes in the yard but that is another story for another time.

Buildings and Grounds

On the road and next to my house is the barn and garage or workshop. These buildings will be part of the co-op’s communal property. Like most everything he built, these structures are extremely well-built but neglected over many years. The garage/workshop is 352 sq.ft and newer than the house and barn, has a paved floor, metal roof, and could easily be insulated. The barn is 997.4 sq. ft., has a dirt floor and the beams overhead are actual trees, bark and all. The barn must be rewired for electric.

The back corner of the barn was eaten by carpenter bees and wasps. My friend and I demoed a funky, rotted shed attached to that area. My workcamper and I are in the process of powerwashing the barn and workshop and will remove the bees and wasps, repair the holes, seal the cracks, replace some bad wood, and prime and paint the barn and workshop. This is high priority because those buildings need rescue and protection to prevent further decay. The metal roofs on both buildings need sealing for leakage. We will do this over the next month or two.

Also,behind my house, the workshop, and barn is a 1.5-2 acre sloping pasture. Horses and cows used to graze here. The pasture is south facing and gets sun all day. It has a shed for animals to get out of the sun but is not currently fenced. This is a good thing since we don’t yet know who will be grazing or what we will grow there. Another spring/summer project when I am not the only one deciding about and working on it. I believe that 1-2 small homes could be assembled or constructed beside the pasture where it backs up to a stand of enormous white pines, the middle of which marks the property line. It would behove us residents to install off grid solar panels in the pasture to provide our electricity. The power company here is gouging us to the max.

Beyond the pasture is the very private, wooded campground. Oscar built this in the ‘70’s to accommodate visiting friends and relatives. This 1.5 acre woods contains

A cabin,
A pavilion,
A storage shed,
A bath house for two, and
Five campsites with water and electric hook-ups

All of the buildings are seasonal and need to be insulated and rewired. The campground was recently rewired and an on demand hot water heater was installed at the bathhouse . The cabin needs a new roof. The Pavillion, bathhouse, and shed were re-roofed last fall. The campground and buildings get water from my well. However, a spring runs through this part of the property and is used by many of our neighbors for their household water. We could tap the spring for water to the campground and its buildings.

The cabin is the building located highest up in the woods. We own the very rough, circular wooded road in front of and behind the cabin and the pavilion. It starts and ends at the pavillion but is not used by vehicles. The cabin itself is 667 sq. ft and has a 147 sq. ft. covered porch with a great view. It has 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom and an open kitchen/living room. The rough hewn siding was milled by Oscar and is 1-2 inches thick. The cabin has its own septic system that I have not had inspected. The foundation is on piers. The plumbing works but should be augmented with an on-demand propane hot water heater. The electric needs rewiring and shares a meter with the campground.

This is the place I am most excited to sell to a co-op member to renovate and make into their own haven. If it were my place I would move the inside walls to provide a larger bathroom and kitchen area, and take some of the larger bedroom space to enlarge the living room area. I would either screen in the lovely covered porch or enclose it as a sun room and year round living space. A small wood stove could take the place of the current Monitor heater or a wall-mounted propane heater. With the right fans, the stove or heater could heat the entire cabin. Another possibility is to enclose the foundation under cabin and slightly beyond the porch to add storage space. Insulation and new windows would be important.

No neighbors are near or can be seen from the cabin. Only forest, pasture, and mountains. This cabin is really sweet and could be cozy, low maintenance, and comfortable.

The Pavillion is one open, 900 sq ft room with a lot of, shall we say, character. It was built as a community space where campers could gather and family events like wedding receptions, etc. could be held. It has a giant stone fireplace that has been outfitted with a propane heater of some sort and is flanked by two very old and heavy wooden barrels. Its one light comes from a very large wagon wheel chandelier. It is interesting that it has no beams or walls anywhere holding up the ceiling but has all of its support above the dropped ceiling. It needs rewiring and does not yet have indoor plumbIng but could be connected to the nearby spring or bathhouse. The foundation is on piers.

If it were my place I would have an open kitchen, living room, studio/office floor plan and build in a bed room, closets, and large bathroom. I would also build an elevated wraparound deck or screen porch off of the kitchen/living room/studio because the view is spectacular and there are no neighbors. I would love to explore removing the dropped ceiling. The windows are huge and very oddly shaped. I love them but am not sure how one would make them energy efficient.

In the best of all worlds we collectively could keep that building as a small event/community meeting place, bunkhouse, bedrooms and kitchen for caregivers, guests, etc. But who knows.

There are 5 wooded campsites with electric hookups and water spigots. These were recently upgraded and rewired and include 20, 30, and 50 amp outlets. Even though things are overgrown back there, each campsite is apparent but not properly graded. There is still gravel on the sites and on the road to the sites but the vegetation needs to be tarped and topped with a load of additional gravel. The campsites and the cabins are in view of each other. However, the forest and distance from neighbors provides total privacy from other neighbors.

There is also a bathhouse in the campground with 2 showers, 2 toilets, and 2 sinks. Oscar made them into separate Men’s and Women’s rooms. These facilities are currently being cleaned, and painted inside and out, leaks repaired and new fixtures where needed. The old electric water heater has been removed and replaced with a propane on-demand hot water heater. There is a septic tank outside of the bathhouse

The road to access the campground from Mcdaris Cove Road did not convey to me when I bought the property because it ran through neighbor Bobby Mcdaris’s property. A couple of months ago I had a road built from the front of the property, (Mcdaris Cove Road) along the property line to the left of the barn, along the pasture, into the woods, and up to the back of the property where the cabins and campground are located. I am very glad to have our own access to the campground and am naming the new road Old Gals Landing.

Next steps for the campground is to grade and gravel the campsites to better accommodate friend and family campers as well as a long term RV site renter. Currently, a “workcamper” is situated back there to help fix up the campground and barn so that other campers can rent the spaces until my co-founders materialize.

While the campground is improved a surveyor will be employed to evaluate the property in order for us to know where an additional house or two can be located and what we need in terms of infrastructure.

Potential Revenue Streams

Many intentional communities have small businesses to provide a revenue stream that supplements what members pay to live there. Given the cost of maintaining, improving, insuring, and repairing the communal property, even in a small place like this one, revenue streams are important. The following are my ideas for potential revenue streams.

The Campsites and bathhouse can be a good revenue stream for the co-op. The same could be said for the Pavillion if we renovated it and kept it as a group, community, event space. Remaining jobs to fix up the private campground for limited use involves grading, 2-3 loads of gravel, and pruning and removing small trees. The upkeep of the campground is also relatively simple and could be one of the jobs members cycle through as a regular co-op community task. We could set up a schedule so that the campground is not always open to visitors, giving an RV-living co-op member and the member in the cabin periodic solitude. Additionally, if a member is living in one of the spaces in her RV, we could limit the rentable sites to three instead of four. Other than an RV-living member, there will be a limit on the size of allowable RV’s. Larger vehicles won't fit or be able to navigate the limited space.
Landclearing Goat Rental. Several years ago I worked for a woman outside of Atlanta who had a large and unmanageable herd of goats which she rented out to clear people’s property of invasive vegetation like English Ivy, Poison Ivy and Oak, Crown Vetch, Kudzu, and many others. This has been an established business for many years and in many places including NC. There is much to learn about goat care and a goat rental business, as well as the market for this service within a one hour radius of Weaverville. Nonetheless, it is my dream and aspiration. I would like to do this research and have a small herd of (6-10) female and castrated male goats that are of a smaller breed that can be managed by a bunch of older women. Again, this is not a high investment venture. Fencing, marketing, gas, a used trailer to transport, and vetting are the big expenses. Goats themselves are frequently given away. If one or two other co-op members wanted to be involved in this it could be done so that there is always someone around to look after and transport the goats when the others are away or unavailable.
Cash crop. We have only a small amount of space and hopefully, one or two of us would want to grow some amount of food for co-op members. So, I’ve dabbled in exploring a crop that is high value and requires relatively little space. How about saffron? Again, the viability of this proposition requires total market and agricultural research. I do know that a little goes a long way, it does not require a lot of space, must be planted and harvested at very precise moments, and much of the labor involves the tedious but meditative task of separating the saffron fibers from each other and from the plant. It could be our version of a quilting bee. The number of foodie towns around here, (Asheville, Hendersonville, Sylva, Brevard, Saluda, to name just a few in WNC alone) would be happy to source their saffron from a band of local old ladies, saving their earnings to provide well-paid professional caregivers when we need them.
I also have a small business of my own, manufacturing and selling (on-line) floor-to-ceiling cat climbers that mount to the end of a partition wall or doorway, install in minutes, and require no drilling, floor space, or hardware. I invented Kiwi’s Climber and hold the patent for this product. This too would benefit from collective efforts but it is too much to go into at this time.

My top property improvement priorities include:

Operationalizing the campground
Doing what is necessary to make use of the barn and workshop
Having the inspector determine the zoning and infrastructure options for residents building 1-2 small houses beside the pasture.
Working with a lawyer to determine a legal collective ownership arrangement of the property
Determining the use and function of the pasture

Next Improvements

Installing solar
Determining the use(s) of the pasture
Fencing the pasture accordingly
Renovating the pavilion for community use

Something I would love to do if and when possible, is to dig a pond in the woods behind the pasture for coop members to cool off in the summer, swim small lengths, and do water aerobics, which I think is so fun and great exercise for us older folks.

JJ Firestone

About JJ Firestone

JJ Firestone is a recent transplant to Weaverville, NC where she purchased a 3.5 acre mini-farm for the purpose of creating a model, 4 to 6-person, self-governing Cooperative for Vigorous Aging. She conceived this model during 17 years in hospice and geriatric social work and caring for her 90+ year old parents for the last six years of their lives.

She is also the inventor and manufacturer of Kiwi’s Climber, a modular floor-to-ceiling cat climber and scratcher that mounts to the end of a partition wall or doorway, and requires no floor-space, drilling, or hardware. Firestone owns the patent for this invention.

For 16 years she coordinated the artificial insemination program at a queer community health center in Boston as well as organizing other community services for queer parents, prospective parents, and their children.

During that time she conceived and raised her, now 32 year old, daughter, Hannah in a cooperative arrangement with Hannah’s 2 dads. For two years prior to her conception Firestone and the dads created a 35 page co-parenting agreement to supersede any “legal” definition of family. The success of this long-term arrangement, based on the written intentions of the three parents, inspired her faith and confidence in people’s abilities to establish and maintain enduring, deliberately chosen, and thoughtfully developed relationships and arrangements.

Feminist Cooperatives for Vigorous Aging

About Feminist Cooperatives for Vigorous Aging

Who We Are

Background and Rationale

Background and Rationale for A Non-traditional Model for Elder Living and Dying

Two Models of Feminist Cooperatives for Vigorous Aging

Two Primary Operational Strategies

The Weaverville Cooperative for Vigorous Aging

Old Gal’s Landing

JJ Firestone

About JJ Firestone

Contact Us

Feminist Cooperatives for Vigorous Aging

Please click here to contact us via email.

Feminist Cooperatives for Vigorous Aging

About Feminist Cooperatives for Vigorous Aging

Who We Are

Background and Rationale

Background and Rationale for A Non-traditional Model for Elder Living and Dying

Two Models of Feminist Cooperatives for Vigorous Aging

Two Primary Operational Strategies

The Weaverville Cooperative for Vigorous Aging

Old Gal’s Landing

JJ Firestone

About JJ Firestone

Contact Us

Feminist Cooperatives for Vigorous Aging

Please click here to contact us via email.

This website uses cookies.