O.U.R. Resurge Community Building Rehab

O.U.R. Resurge -a place to call home @ 117-129 Fenn St. Pittsfield, MA

The real-estate closing for O.U.R. Resurge community building was back  in September! We are so excited to transform the former Lach's Lounge into a community space! We're new to architects and contractors and they are all so busy! The process has been a little slower than we expected but we're making progress. We have 18 committed members to support the work with their skill-sets and labor.

There's no doubt caring for our community has called us to move out and into spaces where it's most needed and to ally alongside movement builders who we call friends and partners. We must never stop moving out and into all the places we are called. It is safe to say, though, we have also longed for a home-base, a space that can carry our community when it needs to heal, create, and/or accomplish it's goals. The choice here is key and thanks to this building donation we are no longer displaced. 

With this building, we hold the opportunity to extend the welcome our donor gave us - a place for local groups, artists, and grassroots initiatives to feel held,  a place for a home-base. O.U.R.'s (Our United Resources) or O.U.R. Resurge is community owned and run. Members have a vote in how the building develops, it’s utilization, and it’s goals. By donating the land it’s on back as a community land trust, it also gives opportunity for the space to stay as a community resource even after we're gone. 

Our video slide captures all the different spaces we move,serve,and create - from art and theater production, to community school, to feeding vulnerable families, to protesting, to creating new models for equity, including three worker co-op start-ups and the structuring of our first co-op housing multi-family!  There seems to be an underlying goal that presupposes our shared ideals - no one should have to feel displaced, alone, and/or with out support. 

Featured slide photos features - Corazonidos Community School, Mercado de Vida, Worker Co-op Development, Harvest of Hope Festival, Women's Fight against Domestic Abuse at the Great Barrington court house, allying with Native Americans at the state house to change the racist seal and insignia on our flag (it's been done!), performing a play that transformed the Christmas Tale, Scrooge, into Three Kings with a theme that successfully related a story about justice and a call to reunite immigrant families and release children from cages, issues of Fronteras Comunes Bi-lingual Social Justine Art Zine, Co-op Housing - structuring the first model, and photos of us with our extended community and allies at Mumbet's Freedom Farm, Cloud Kingdom, Reformation Academy and Cathedral of the Beloved. We threw in a few good oldies with members we love dearly but  who have passed - Akosua and Jose. 

Our GoFundMe has two phases! This first one will focus on the initial costs to rehab  Lach's Lounge into a community space so that we can start using it! The second phase will attend to updating the bar and an extremely outdated kitchen into a commercial kitchen for community use, which includes our two Latina led business groups, Gustitos Boricuas and members of Berkshire Seamstresses who will be selling thier baked Latino staples to our local grocery stores.  We will be raising funds via this campaign as well as applying for suitable grants!

Thank you so much for your support and we hope you, too, will find community at O.U.R. Resurge! 

Learn more about our work in our most recent mail-chimps!

https://us6.campaign-archive.com/?u=1cbfc9bbb0de5aa4aea6fe11a&id=12d8e4e604

https://mailchi.mp/02a9d9fefc0e/zbux3yf6dt-5125909

Read our most recent edition of our bi-lingual magazine Fronteras Comunes!

https://www.flipsnack.com/fronterascomunes/fronteras-comunes-despertares-edition-verano-2021.html

Signed,
Roots & Dreams and Mustard Seeds Inc. & Manos Unidas Cooperative

All donations are tax deductible. Our EIN is - 82-3012805. You can also request a form documenting your donation. Email [email redacted]

Phase 1 -
Architect - $3000
Electrical Work - $3100
Sheet-rocking - $1200
Plumbing - $2200
Interior Painting - $870
Exterior Painting - $900
Men's Bathroom rehab - $1400
Flooring - $2700
Restoring tin ceiling - $1300
Total - $16,670

Phase 2 - 
Community Commercial  - $15,000

Donate here! 
https://gofund.me/8a609bef


-- 
Roots & Dreams and Mustard Seeds Inc.
& Manos Unidas Multicultural Cooperative
Seeding a Berkshire Grown Solidarity Economy! 
https://www.rootsandmustardseeds.com/
Ph. [phone redacted]  
Like us on Facebook!   
The Olive Tree Branch - shop with us!