Twin Oaks Community, Virginia facts for kids

Twin Oaks Community is an ecovillage and intentional community of about one hundred people living on 450 acres (1.8 km²) in Louisa County, Virginia. It is a member of the Federation of Egalitarian Communities. Founded in 1967, it is one of the longest-enduring and largest secular intentional communities in North America. The community's basic values are cooperation, egalitarianism, nonviolence, sustainability, and income sharing. About 100 adults and 17 children live in the community.

Founding

The community was founded on a 123-acre (0.50 km²) tobacco farm in 1967 by a group of eight individuals with no farming experience that included Kat Kinkade, who wrote two books about the community. The community's initial inspiration was B. F. Skinner's novel Walden Two, which describes a fictional behaviorist utopia. However, Skinner's vision quickly faded from prominence at Twin Oaks, as behaviorist principles were abandoned in favor of egalitarian principles. The community struggled greatly during its first few years, as member turnover was high and the community members didn't earn much income. According to Kinkade, the community avoided the problems stereotypically associated with communes (particularly laziness, freeloading, and excessive lack of structure) by adopting a structured, yet flexible, labor system.

Modified versions of the community's initial organizational structure and labor credit system survive to this day. As in Skinner's novel, the original labor credit system utilized "variable" credit hours. Certain jobs were worth more credit hours than others in order to make each job desirable. What the community found once the population reached about 40 is that there was neither universally desirable work, nor undesirable work and the variable credit hour system created distortions in which work was getting done. The modified version of this plan in place today uses "standardized" credits; each job in the community is valued the same in terms of credit hours.

Life as a member

Hammock-making is one of Twin Oaks' main sources of income

Twin Oaks has approximately 100 members. People interested in joining Twin Oaks must attend a scheduled three-week visitor period. During this period, visitors tour the community and attend orientations on various aspects of membership: Unlike most co-housing situations, there is no cost to join the community, nor any rent or ongoing costs associated with living there. Basic necessities—housing, clothing, food, health care—are all provided to members in return for their 42 weekly hours of work. Since 2011, Twin Oaks has consistently had a waiting list, so visitors who are accepted for membership need to wait typically 3 to 9 months before they can join. Before a new member can join, while the community is at its population capacity, a current member needs to drop membership. Historically, Twin Oaks has expanded its housing when it has had a waiting list for a prolonged period by building new residences and expanding the stock of bedrooms available.

A member of Twin Oaks works around 42 hours a week. Some labor is directed toward generating income, and the rest consists of domestic work like gardening/food production, cooking, bike repair, building maintenance, cleaning, and child care. Most Twin Oakers perform a wide variety of tasks each week instead of spending all of their time in one labor area. Members can also choose to work outside of Twin Oaks. The income from this labor may go to the community, although some portion of it can go into a member's "vacation earnings". Excess labor done in a week accumulates as vacation time.

Though live television viewing is prohibited, Twin Oaks' members have access to the Internet as well as to public computers. Members can also watch movies and tapes of TV programs. People in the community often gather for other recreational activities such as dancing, meditating, discussing literature, staging musicals, and playing board games.

Twin Oaks members are religiously diverse. The membership includes Christians, Atheists, Pagans, Buddhists, and others. The community hosts Pagan handfastings, Equinox parties, and Thanksgiving dinners, and it celebrates June 16, the anniversary of its founding.

Residents live in dormitory-style living quarters spread out across the community. Each member has a private bedroom, but shares public spaces.

Member turnover is no longer as high as it was in the community's early years, and many former Twin Oakers live in nearby Charlottesville and Louisa to maintain ties to the community.

Twin Oaks and the communities movement

Twin Oaks has helped establish three sister communities: Acorn Community, about 7 miles (11 km) from Twin Oaks, Living energy farm, also in Louisa County, VA; and East Wind Community in south central Missouri.

Twin Oaks also hosts annual intentional community gatherings cosponsored by the Fellowship for Intentional Community. The Communities Conference, and the Women's Gathering, both of which take place every August.

Twin Oaks in the media

The history of Twin Oaks Community is detailed extensively in two books by Kathleen (Kat) Kinkade, one of the co-founders of the community. The first, A Walden Two Experiment, covers the first five years of the community. The second, Is it Utopia Yet?, covers the next 20 years. Another book from the 1980s, Living the Dream, by Ingrid Komar (the mother of a member at the time the book was written), also discusses Twin Oaks' history. Many newspaper and magazine articles have been written about Twin Oaks. About half a dozen dissertations and a dozen master's theses have been written about the community, as well. In 1998, the Washington Post Magazine did a cover story on Twin Oaks.

Twin Oaks and ecology

Twin Oaks seeks to be a model of sustainability. The average Twin Oaks member consumes fewer resources than the average American due to the community's practices of resource sharing and self-sufficiency. Members hold all resources in common except for the personal items they keep in their bedrooms. For instance, members share housing, a fleet of 17 vehicles, and a large "clothing library". Twin Oaks members consume 70% less gasoline, 80% less electricity, and 76% less natural gas per capita than do their neighbors.

Critiques of Twin Oaks

The community itself acknowledges that it has yet to create the perfect society; it even provides a guidebook entitled "Not Utopia Yet" to visitors. For instance, there is little privacy at Twin Oaks. Also, those who choose to live at Twin Oaks for several years—including founder Kinkade—sometimes feel "trapped" there. This is because members have little opportunity to build up equity or savings.