Camphill Communities of North America

Overall, very informative and great place to be creative. Build a lot of community, and CA is a beautiful place to explore. Lots of things happening in Santa Cruz. Lots of costs covered. People are open and beautiful and want to connect! I would love to see community members more involved outside the community and would love to be involved part time! Maybe more options and being flexible with outside community support. Often Camphill works to get a variety of coworkers from all over the world, so it's a beautiful space to meet new people. It is still a work, care taking environment so there are regulations and items that need to be taken care of. You're living and working and exploring and growing all in the same place!

This experience was very meaningful to me because Camphill is a place that understands the importance of community, growth, understanding, sacrifice, art, healing, and education. I met people like myself who want to see care and intentionality in the world, and who want to care for people and love them in a special way. I learned much from the friends who lived there and I think of them everyday. It really helped me to understand the beauty of every individual, not for what they can do but for who they are.

I originally just wanted to spend 6 month as a volunteer service in Triform Camphill Community (One of he Camphill communities od North America) in-between my bachelor and master degree. After I arrived in the community I quickly realized that I wanted to stay longer here and decided to extend my stay. In the end I stayed for more than one and half years in Triform. Triform is a really special (in a positive way) place where people with a variety of needs, skills, cultural backgrounds and personalities live and work together.
The daily life in the community has a lot of structure like certain times for meals and work during the day or events in the week like movie night every Friday. All the meals are eaten together with the house you are living in which can be between 6 or 14 people. A lot of the time during the week is spend in different work areas like the farm, garden, pottery, bakery, weavery or estate, where you work together with people with special needs. The community requires a lot of work from everyone, but the work is often fun and you have a direct and visible goal you achieve with your work like harvesting food for the next meal. Because you often work in a team (that often turn into your friends), the work feels easier. Usually everyone in the community has one day off per week where you can spend the day like you want for example hiking in the Catskill Mountain or taking the train to NYC. Also in the evening a lot of the young people that volunteer in Triform hang out together for example in the gym that belongs to Triform.
In Triform you are part of a community which comes with pros and cons. You are often around people, you always have someone to talk to if you have something happy to share but also when you're feeling sad or homesick. Because you live and work at the same place it can sometimes be challenging to navigate those relationships. It is definitely a different life style than a normal 9 to 5 job where you head home afterwards, because your home is also your volunteer/job space.
I have a lot of memories that I will cherish for my whole life like seeing the cows jumping when we let them out on the pasture in the spring, having a bonfire with hot dogs and stick bread or singing a long Mamma Mia during movie night. I still think about Triform a lot and what a wonderful place it is!