
Natural Building for Black & Indigenous Folks
Donation protected

THE SHORT:
In 2016, I started my journey learning how to build homes out of cob (clay, sand, water and straw) and what a gorgeous path it has been! I am ecstatic to see where it flows with a little help from my family and friends ;)
This fundraiser is a gift designed to give me access to educational books (Please Blow up my library with the best Natural Building Quarantine reads!)
https://www.myregistry.com/giftlist/chelseas30thbirthdaynaturalbuildingbookbash the ability to purchase My first Set of tools!- I often only have access to use tools in workshop spaces- (hawks, trowel, hole diggers, wheel barrows, shovels, levels, saw etc on deck!), and further my Education (seeking mentorship: apprenticeship, internship) - with your help I will become fully equip to cross the bridge from student to Natural building teacher with a focus on offering decolonized safe spaces for BIPOC - Black, Indigenous, People of Color /Queer/Marginalized and Oppressed folks to learn how to build cob houses while reaching for ancestry, land sovereignty, healing and Home in the context of history.

This is my legacy.
*NOTE: There are a few books on my registry out of stock - I just wanted to give you the title...feel free to buy it from elsewhere just let me know that you are purchasing it so I can remove it from the registry so I don't get multiples of the same book :) There are additionally 3 books not on my registry (technical difficulty linking it) - Buildings of Earth and Straw, Building with Lime, and Using Natural Finishes.
*Stay tuned for an upcoming video that deepens and brings my story to life - Filming in December*
Thank you for your loving kindness and support <3 it means everything to me! :)

THE LONGER VERSION:
I've decided with conviction, going into my 30th year of incarnation on this earth on November 25th, that I will NOT play it safe or perish without having fought to full fill my life's legacy.
I have so much work to do, so many heart visions to bring forth and so many BIPOC folks to call home and I need your help.
As we face a world in peril, I find myself without veil seeing with precision what is deeply important and needed in this world. Natural homes that breathe life, heated with clean energy, lit by the warm sun, crafted in creativity, clay danced by the batch full, and lifted with community cooperation and camaraderie.
After all, play is the best medicine. My gesture to continue to strive for this work in the unknown of how Covid 19 will shape our lives in the future, is my hearts prayer to be together in the mud, sharing stories, tea, and laughter, in person some day soon. Until then, I will work solo on my craft.
In 2017, while studying massage therapy and as my traditional child hood home changed hands, I redefined my body as home and looked beyond the cookie cutter characterless "model homes" that lacked vibrancy and personality for another path, another way to be homed in the future. A way that is closer to the land, healthier for the earth, for humans, and for all of ecology. I found myself in the clay and now, we're 3 years deep into a life time, loving, ever expansive relationship.

The past 3 years of my life I have spent striving to have access to an indigenous rooted style of building where clay, sand, and water are combined on tarps and squished by foot and built with one bucket full at a time. It is becoming increasingly too costly for me to continue my path as there are limited Natural building educators in my area and requires me to travel to continue hands on education.
My greatest wish at age 30 is to make a greater impact and to share the magic of my passions widely and freely.
Staying in the cob, learning, experimenting, and continuing to walk the muddy path of a Natural Builder is one of an ancestral remembrance of how to build shelter the way my ancestors did ~ It is a birth rite, an initiation and invitation from those before me. In the clay, over and over I find myself, new ways of imaging the future that I never thought possible, an unbreakable enthusiasm for possibility and hope for a new world.
The NEED:
The Natural Building community lacks diversity and painstakingly needs BIPOC leaders, elders and guides for aspiring young BIPOC natural builders seeking home in the clay and paying homage to their ancestors. As a brown person, it can sometimes be a guttural endeavor in the United States seeking this knowledge as the majority of natural building workshop spaces are white centered. With a history of genocide, pillaging, rape, murder, and slavery and land unrest these spaces are not designed to carry the weight of the BIPOC history that lives in the soil. Often paired with the joy building communally in mud is a palpable trauma.
At every workshop I have attended, I have notice there are max 2 POC folks out of about 15-30 people and even fewer BIPOC teachers.

ANSWERING THE CALL:
Supporting me is supporting an entire community of BIPOC folks from being harmed, unseen, and un held in moments of historical memory surfacing in the clay. My positionality blesses me with the ability to hold these stories in leadership. why? Representation matters.
HELP ME BECOME THE TEACHER this community needs, to then teach more BIPOC folks to to become teachers and bring diversity to the indigenous practice of natural building.

HOW CAN YOU BE AN ACTIVE CATALYST IN CHANGING THE NARRATIVE?:
*Donate*
THIS IS A CALL FOR DECOLONIZING CLAY!
A RECLAMATION OF THE SOIL!
THIS IS MY ACTIVISM!

Here and now, at age 30 I publicly claim that I will become the elder that I always prayed existed in the natural building world so that young aspiring BIPOC builders like myself wouldn't be alone reaching for this ancestral knowledge in spaces where people don't perceive racism, can't hear, or hold our experiences.
Other Ways to Help That Aren’t Monetary:
· Donate your Tools! - Don't have money but have a tool? I’d be happy to send you my tool list.
· Donate copies of Natural building books - Don't want to purchase one but have an extra that you feel good about parting with? - Send it to me :) (if the book is on the registry, let me know it is coming so I can take it off the registry) *You are also welcome to send me books that aren't on the registry*
· I Need access to more Education - If sending money is not a viable option and you are a natural builder (of any race) and want to offer a free in person workshop, free online workshop, an internship opportunity, the ability to shadow you while you teach a workshop or work or want to be a resource to ask questions or BEST! want to hire me to get paid and continue learn at the same time. Please let me know, I thank you on behalf of all the lives you touch through me in advance.
· I need to identify a POC person in the DMV area who knows about building codes, building equity, purchasing land, how to get through red tape hurdles for folks that want to purchase property
· When the first workshop is in action – I’ll need a cook, a Natural building team of at least 3 folks (If you are a BIPOC natural builder interested in being part of this mission please contact me via email (email below)– lets start to get to know each other, attend some workshops together, dream together! - if you are a teacher of any race and want to support us, email me.
· If you know BIPOC/Queer Natural Builders any where in the world send them my way. Connections and Community are made rich through quality togetherness!
· Share this story!!! :) Keep it circling
· MESSAGE me if you're interested conversing about reparations in the form of land, investing, grant writing
P.s. I would also love if folks sent me poems or songs you wrote, a dance that dances you, a puppet show...share any medium of creativity with me for my birthday.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR GENEROSITY IN CELEBRATING MY INCARNATION AND BLESSING THIS NEXT CHAPTER OF MY LIFE. I COULD NOT DO THIS SOUL WORK WITHOUT YOU. BECAUSE OF YOU I AM THE WARRIOR I AM TODAY<3 UNTIL WE CAN BE TOGETHER AGAIN! CHEERS TO 30!!! xo ~ Sea (They/them)

Organizer
Chelsea Meney
Organizer
Frederick, MD