COMMUNITY REBUILDS wrote -

Everybody needs a home. Haiti? Rural America? Seth Rogen? Yep - we all need housing. And most of us need housing to be simple and accessible.

Community Rebuilds is a NPO located in Moab, UT (a rural community in southeastern Utah surrounded by a beautiful landscape). We bring young, emerging professionals to our rural town and teach them how to build straw bale homes. Why? Because rural Utah needs simple and accessible housing. Is that it? No - because rural America needs simple accessible housing. OK, is that it? No - because young, emerging professionals need a mechanism for change...like someone to teach them how to build simple and accessible housing so they can travel to places like Haiti and continue the trend.

WHY STRAW BALE? Because straw is an agricultural bi-product. That means that straw is usually thrown away or burned after the farmer separates the 'wheat from the chaff'. Now, John the Baptist had no idea that straw might someday be a terrific building block when he coined this phrase and identified straw as 'waste'. The 3 little pigs did not help when they used loose - not tightly baled - straw to build the home that would eventually be blown down by that big, bad wolf. But today, straw bales are a uniquely green way of building a solid home that costs less to build and much less to maintain than conventional 'green' homes.

Our program is simple: each year we set a goal to build 2 straw bale homes for 2 low-income families in Moab, UT. We recruit up to 8 student interns to join us in the Spring (Feb 1 - May 31) and 8 student interns in the Fall (Aug 1 - Nov 30). Each semester we build a home from foundation to finish. We provide our students a place to live and a food stipend of $100/month so they can just get out here and build for 4 months.

Earth day - the day we celebrate nature. Celebrate with us by donating to our program. Who knows? Maybe a Community Rebuilds graduate will someday build a straw bale home in your community!