Brief History~
A small, all volunteer grassroots nonprofit, organized in 1998, Heartland Communities, Inc. was originally created to demonstrate sustainable living through projects in permaculture and organic growing, cooperative enterprise, alternative energy, intentional living, and youth development. After several years of working toward these goals, the tragic events of September 11, 2001 chan
ged the cultural, political and financial landscape. The members believed that our local community was not ready to embrace these ideas and the organization was shelved and lay fallow for five years. Community members called for the resurrection of the organization in 2006, perceiving that the mainstream society had “caught up” to understanding these ideas; even the City government had created an energy and environmental services department to “go green” and the timing was right to renew our efforts to become active voices for sustainability. We were involved in projects to advocate for cooperative housing as a viable model for low-income homeownership and succeeded in changing the conversation state-wide, when state housing development department offered training in cooperative housing and related topics and housing development officials from Fort Wayne attended. In 2007 the organization discovered another grassroots effort working on the issue of water quality and the poor health of the three rivers whose confluence flows through downtown Fort Wayne at the headwaters of the Maumee River, which then flows to Lake Erie. We took the development of Save Maumee Grassroots Organization as a project, acting as fiscal sponsor for nonprofit activities including grants and donations, and participated in capacity building over six years, through training and certification of the founder and director in watershed management, the establishment of a Board of Trustees, by-laws, incorporation, and IRS1023 application for nonprofit status in December 2013' which was successfully granted in 2014. Our current project, Plowshares, was convened by The Workers' Project, Inc., a worker education and organizing nonprofit associated with the Northeast Indiana Central Labor Council (as the Food and Jobs Initiative), in collaboration with Associated Churches, Inc. and the Urban League, Fort Wayne Chapter, and other community stakeholders. The initiative is being lead by Jain Young, administrator of Heartland Communities, Inc., and who serves as Project Organizer and Technical Writer. Plowshares is a community economic development project to organize farmers and farm workers and develop a local food aggregation distribution system for local consumption, while creating jobs and job training for new food workers. Another project the Stewards of Heartland are preparing to launch is a Time Bank system for sharing talents and abilities. It can be seen as a favor-share club where members trade time. It works like a bank, only the currency is time and talent. For example, if I can fix bikes and I need a haircut, I don't need to find a stylist who needs her bike fixed. I can put in an hour for anybody in the system, and any stylist in the system can cut my hair. Stay tuned to our page for information and updates on these and other projects.
