Cultivating Regenerative Communities & Economies | By Permatours & LaLa Gardens Cooperative

A fundraiser by Permatours for our partnership with Natural Farming-Focused Cooperative, LaLa Gardens, based in Fort Collins, Colorado

We are asking for your support at a crucial time of growth for both organizations. 

LaLa Gardens struggled to make ends meet during the pandemic and is now facing foreclosure. 

With your support, Permatours and LaLa Gardens can save the sanctuary and demonstration garden and offer our shared communities a Hub to experience the magic the garden has to offer:

- soil science-focused research

- residencies & internships

- onsite and online education

- events

Our shared focus areas are increasing food security & biodiversity, educating on regenerative gardening and natural building, and cultivating the communities we want to thrive in. 

Your donation will fund:

ONLINE LEARNING - 

The launch of our online learning programs, including a Korean Natural Farming course with enrollment starting in mid September, and a Soil Food Web Focused Panel in early October. 

ONSITE EDUCATION - 

Education offered onsite, including Permatours next event centered around building a rocket stove for one of the tipis raised at LaLa Gardens by local Lakota Tribe Leaders. 

COLLEGE COURSES & CREDIT - 

Offering college students applied learning and research opportunities outside of the classroom.

RESIDENCIES - 

Hosting residents who can use the property and programs to practice and cultivate their craft, while giving back to the collective. LaLa Gardens currently has the capacity to host 6 residents, plus longer-term visitors and guests who can stay in the tipis or on campsites (6). Plans of constructing tiny natural buildings to host additional residents are also in the works. 

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WHY WE CAN DO THIS -

In less than two years, Permatours has executed over 40 volunteer-driven learn-by-doing projects and events at different farms, homesteads, and community centers throughout the Northeast and midwest, and we are expanding internationally. 

The current owners of LaLa Gardens - Natural Farmer, Gardener, and Educator, Tina Trout, and her mother Sandy Worth - a florist and gardener - have operated food production and floral design businesses for years and have hosted educational events in and around Fort Collins for over 14 years. 

LaLa Gardens' use of Web3 based technology to manage memberships to the garden and protect the original owners' equity as the property transitions to becoming cooperatively owned is revolutionary. 

There's great potential for this project to serve as a case study for land owners groups striving to own homes and businesses cooperatively, as well as create circular economies that reward actions demonstrating the values they want to uphold as a community. 

We appreciate your donation and support as we pioneer a new way of learning, co-creating, and thriving together.

You can review our financial spreadsheets itemizing costs, income, and net earnings from our efforts here: www.shorturl.at/cvwz1 

Thank you!

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More on Permatours and LaLa Gardens Cooperative educational focus areas:

• Growing and producing food using natural farming and permaculture principles

• Building structures with natural, eco-friendly materials that give back to the earth upon their decay

• Water collection & filtration

• Redistributing the waste stream (“Closing the Poop Loop” via composting food & human waste)

• Homesteading and animal husbandry

• Making clothes, body, & home products

• Learning & practicing equitable and fair models of governance and community decision making

• Experimenting with alternative forms of barter, trade, & exchange

• Exploring the use of Web3 technology to create circular feedback loops and transparent value distribution

• Creating platforms for people to express themselves authentically and to use their gifts in service & for fun!

• Leadership, Restorative Justice and Communication training

• Weaving together communities who share the aforementioned values, mission, & focus areas

ONSITE & ONLINE EDUCATION & EVENTS

Permatours and LaLa Gardens have hosted two events at the garden this summer - a “Poop Palace” (Compost Toilet Structure) & a 3-Day Retreat & Campout.

At the end of October, we will collaboratively host a “rocket stove build” to reside in one of the tipis erected in the garden by leaders of the Lakota tribe.

Beginning in mid-September, we’ll be co-hosting monthly meetups to cultivate Web3 education and ideation (focused on blockchain, cryptocurrency, NFTs, & smart contracts) - illuminating how communities can create circular economies that incentive and reward behaviors and projects that they want to see more of in the world. We’ll use Seeds Cryptocurrency, Permatokens, LaLa Coins, & LaLa Gardens "Garden Gate" & "Microbe Heroes" NFT Collections as examples for attendees to learn from).

Our first online course will teach Korean Natural Farming and JADAM, led by Tina Trout, Pioneer in Residence at LaLa Gardens. The course will be available for enrolling on September 1st, with the first cohort beginning on September 15th.

LALA GARDENS RESIDENCIES

LaLa Gardens will function as an HQ for Permatours & Seeds’ cryptocurrency & global community, where volunteers, interns, and residents can learn onsite and share their own gifts and offerings, too.

There are four residents living onsite and participating in cultivating the vision for LaLa Gardens, with room for additional residents. As a part of a cultural exchange with the local Fort Collins Lakota Tribe members, there are two traditional Native American tipis on site for visitors and retreat guests to stay in. There’s also land available for campers (6 tent sites).

COLLEGE CREDIT & COURSE OPPORTUNITIES

To offer students practical, in-the-field opportunities to gain exposure and a more intimate understanding of what they’re learning inside the classroom, Permatours and LaLa Gardens are partnering to develop relationships and programs with colleges in and around Fort Collins - a college town. Together, the organizations are crafting presentations and curated programs to offer students access to events hosted at LaLa Gardens that could function as a course or earn them class credit.

We (as Permatours & LaLa Gardens) are in the process of developing material to present to colleges and universities as alumni and patrons. We plan to begin outreach to universities and colleges in September of 2022.

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PERMATOURS HISTORY

In April of 2020, Permatours launched upon receiving a Seeds cryptocurrency grant, given to Permatours to reward those who contributed to its permaculture-action and sustainable construction tour of events. Over the past year and a half, Permatours has completed over 40 learn-by-doing projects around the northeast and midwest of the United States, and primarily through our participation in the global Seeds network, we’re expanding our tour across the globe. Contributors and hosts of Permatours have earned Seeds from our original grant, which they can use to buy products and services from members of the communities we serve who are selling their offerings for Seeds. You can learn more about Permatours here: https://permatours.org/ 

LALA GARDENS COOPERATIVE'S HISTORY

LaLa Garden’s property was purchased in 2004 to be a market garden for a Mother and a daughter. The garden has been in the process of succession since 2012 through Permaculture practices, refined by Natural Farming, to its present regenerative function, informing the owners that Regenerative practices lead to healing and sovereignty of the natural being within thriving ecosystems respected as a sanctuary.

Today, LaLa Gardens is a one-acre garden and Limited Cooperative Association in Fort Collins, CO, functioning as a living model for regenerative urban gardening and rewilding experiences. Engaged through playful stewardship, balanced relationships, experiential learning and the application of natural law, LaLa Gardens is a part of a shift from an exploitative paradigm into one of reciprocity, successional evolution, abundance, and inter-relationship with the natural world and with each other. 

The focus of the garden is developing a catalyst hub for regeneration with welcoming, fun, and functional experiences that make any community we call home interconnected as an ecosystem. You can read about LaLa Gardens Cooperatives structure, owners, and stewards here:  

www.shorturl.at/jmTY3 

You can learn about offerings available for members here: https://lalagardens.coop 

PERMATOURS X LALA GARDENS | WHAT SPARKED THE PARTNERSHIP

Permatours met LaLa Gardens through the Seeds community and started to jive over the prospect of co-creating NFTs, non-fungible tokens aka unique digital assets. Permatours organizer, Syd Harvey Griffith & the original LaLa Gardens owner, Tina Trout, co-created Regen Garden with other members of their communities, a platform aiding impact causes & artists in their collaborative creation and adoption of NFTs that fundraise, offer utility and build community. Several months later, LaLa Gardens created, in partnership with Regen Garden, two NFT collections:

“Microbe Heroes" - www.shorturl.at/CJNQ0 

&

“Garden Gate" - www.shorturl.at/uDMQZ 

After working together remotely for six months, Syd met Tina in person at LaLa Gardens and shortly after, she decided to move on-site to aid in its transition from private to cooperatively owned and to support with fundraising, as well as event production. Syd is thrilled for the opportunity to host Permatours events at LaLa Gardens, participate in the housing co-op as an owner, and support the garden’s integration with blockchain technology as a tool for building a regenerative local economy.

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A special thanks to Lifted Outdoors for your fiscal sponsorship and for supporting Permatours with its transition to an official 501c3!