Founded in 1975, JABA is Central Virginia’s leading provider of information and services for seniors

Our mission is to promote, establish and preserve sustainable communities for healthy aging that benefit individuals and families of all ages.

My Home For Life™

Helping Your Loved Ones Age in Place

Crafting Intentional Communities: Cooperative Living Along Life’s Journey

Friday, October 19, 2007

9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. (registration beginning at 8:30, reception to follow)

Albemarle County Office Building, Lane Auditorium (see below for parking details)

Hosted and staffed by JABA; co-sponsored by JABA, Stonehaus, My Home for Life, AARP Virginia, The University of Virginia’s Institute on Aging, and ACCT (Alliance for Community Choice in Transportation).

Crafting Intentional Communities: Cooperative Living Along Life’s Journey is a one-day gathering designed to highlight several kinds of housing and living innovations that can serve as alternatives to large scale retirement communities, anonymous life in existing single-family neighborhoods, assisted living facilities, and potentially long-term care facilities such as nursing homes.

As defined at wiki.ic.org, “An "intentional community" is a group of people who have chosen to live together with a common purpose, working cooperatively to create a lifestyle that reflects their shared core values. The people may live together on a piece of rural land, in a suburban home, or in an urban neighborhood, and they may share a single residence or live in a cluster of dwellings. This definition spans a wide variety of groups, including (but not limited to) communes, ecovillages, student cooperatives, land co-ops, cohousing groups, monasteries and ashrams, kibbutzim, and farming collectives. Although quite diverse in philosophy and lifestyle, each of these groups places a high priority on fostering a sense of community--a feeling of belonging and mutual support that is increasingly hard to find in mainstream Western society.

By hosting this conference, we plan to bring individuals and groups together who are interested in exploring alternative living arrangements – especially as they “age in community.” The sponsors of this event believe the greater Charlottesville area provides multiple opportunities to establish intentional communities able to preserve, advance, and appreciate the values of Elderhood.

Sustainability

We are also interested in sustainability – both of our natural and human resources – as we live, grow and age in community. We are making every effort to use electronic communication to the extent possible, and are happy to provide paper copies of or information by phone as requested. We are utilizing a local restaurant, Revolutionary Soup, to provide lunch, and have asked them to include as much locally grown food as possible. For more information on locally grown food, please visit the website www.buylocalcville.org. We will have a limited number of paper materials available at the conference (symposium schedule, resource list, attendee list) and will continue to post more extensive information on the intentional communities page of JABA’s website.