I often search for a model that I can apply to solve or help solve the homeless crisis in Oregon. Ideas come along every now, some drifting on the wind, some flowering from the ground, some via reading, some via conversations. One emerged a while back. I was walking some old dogs through a dairy farm gone to seed along a degraded river and I found myself standing in front of a dilapidated wooden barn. It was leaning, sagging, growing shrubs and trees inside and on the roof. It was returning to the earth and would never shelter livestock again.
I witnessed a "barn-raising" of sorts in November 2018, when on a cloudy morning a cement slab was transformed into the external structure of the Benedictine Brewery and St. Michael Taproom. Over 100 Catholic seminarians, priests, monks and volunteers from the Mount Angel community and beyond, worked all day including a traditional buffet lunch in the barn next door. I will never forget this experience and the Brewery is now thriving. https://thebeerchaser.com/2017/11/21/the-benedictine-brewery-beam-me-up/
I witnessed a "barn-raising" of sorts in November 2018, when on a cloudy morning a cement slab was transformed into the external structure of the Benedictine Brewery and St. Michael Taproom. Over 100 Catholic seminarians, priests, monks and volunteers from the Mount Angel community and beyond, worked all day including a traditional buffet lunch in the barn next door. I will never forget this experience and the Brewery is now thriving. https://thebeerchaser.com/2017/11/21/the-benedictine-brewery-beam-me-up/