It’s hard to sum up 18 years in a blog post. On Saturday night we will celebrate the end of a beautiful thing-Abundance NC. It’s not the end of abundance of course, but the non-profit organization will be dissolved according to the current Board of Directors and Executive Director.

Abundance NC began in 2006 in our hot tub when we were frustrated at the lack of sustainability projects happening, the red tape and bureaucracy. We decided to start a non-profit that focused on renewable fuels, local food and of course community. It seemed like a no brainer in this town. Our founding board was rock star status and had big visions.

Most of the time we responded to what folks in the community were asking for. Sustainability tours became a big deal with school children and adults alike. We could show them the biodiesel plant, the solar panels, talk about the farm, native plants, composting, worms, and conservation. We began small workshops at The Plant. Everything from how to eat from a CSA box to growing mushrooms, aquaponics, biodiesel making to non-violent communications and on and on. We put on hundreds of workshops.

School lunches were a program…we shipped thousands of pounds of local food into the 17 Chatham County Schools, brought in Chefs and worked with the lunch ladies. Amazing stuff happened! We did give up after 3 years, the mountain was too big for us.

We then went on to create festivals and conferences. PepperFestbegan from a need to get feedback on Farmer Doug’s hundred varieties of mostly sweet peppers. PepperFest will get recreated and will continue at The Plant, so get ready for some beautiful food and peppers in the fall.

A farmer asked us to put on a conference about climate change and that started a whole thing. Slow Money was under our umbrella and the force of nature, Carol Hewitt, really made a difference in how small businesses could gain some capital to get started.

We launched dozens of projects and other non-profits in our fiscal sponsorship program. That was big. The mural across from Havoc Brewery was created because we stepped in to be the non-profit overseeing that beautiful painting of the Haw River with Stacye Leanza and a big group of folks.

Bikes and Barnyards was another wild idea…let’s collaborate with Triangle Bikeworks and have a bunch of kids learn about biking and farming and of course go to my house and swim. I remember one camp looking over at Kevin Hicks after the first day and he said “we only had 6 kids bleeding today”.

We put on intellectual and entertaining events such as Pecha Kucha, a drag queen event at the General Store, Drink & Thinks, and Think Agains.

When my son died, the Abundance community picked up my family and me and carried us for a long long time. Death Faire came out of that and will continue for as long as I can keep it up.

I could keep writing. We could create a book or make a movie about Abundance. But really I just want to thank all the supporters, all the board members, the amazing staff throughout the years. And special thanks to LaShauna and Brittany who were wise enough to say let’s close that door. And we’ll open up another one.

Join us for a cozy night at Fair Game (192 Lorax Lane) Saturday (Jan 20, 2024) 5-8pm. We’ll tell stories, catch up and get ready for the next chapter.