Section I – Mission statement:
The purpose of the website is to show how the community Garden of Eden in Arlington, Texas, is successful and to highlight on any long term goals the community members have.
While some information on the community has been published before, it seems not many people know about the close-knit, sustainable community that the members have created.
In the few years Garden of Eden has been active, the group has achieved a negative zero carbon footprint, has saved 350,000 pound of trash from the landfill annually, has survived with no outside wages, government funding or private benefactors, and the average cost of living is now less than $1 a day per person.
My website will focus on how they achieved these things in only a couple of years and the hopes they have for Garden of Eden 2.0, which is currently in the works.
Through telling this community’s story, I want to include photos and video that will give visitors to my website a literal look into this community.
I hope to include interviews with the founder of the community to see what has influenced him and if there are other communities (like Twin Oaks) that helped to shape Garden of Eden.
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Section II – Tools:
YouTube – Any videos that I take and/or use – as Garden of Eden already has a YouTube account – will be through this tool.
Digital camera – This I will use to take pictures and/or videos of the Garden of Eden. Any interviews will be stored on the digital camera.
WordPress – This website is where I will create the website for Garden of Eden. Through WordPress, I can add links to any YouTube videos I want to add, and I can link to other articles on the GOE.
Gmail – This is how I will keep in contact with community members and Quinn Eaker, founder.
Facebook – Similarly, I will also keep in touch with GOE here.
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Section III – Milestones:
Oct. 2-6 – Conduct a phone interview with Quinn Eaker and learn more about the founding of the community.
Oct. 7-8 (or Oct. 13-14) – Travel to the community whenever the community is available to meet with me and meet other community members and take pictures of the community. Continue to learn about GOE. (I was not able to make this visit.)
Oct. 9-13 – Start working through WordPress. Incorporate Youtube videos on pages. Talk about how the community was started and future goals. Also incorporate any interviews I may have at this time.
Oct. 16-20 – Continue working on pages in WordPress. Make decisions on how the website will look.
Oct. 23-27 – Keep working with WordPress. Add more information to pages, include information on how to visit the community and any events open to the public.
Oct. 30-Nov. 3 – On my webpage, talk about the founding of the community. Look at Quinn Eaker’s ideals and compare them to those of some other communities. Similarly, look at the success of GOE and compare that the communities we have read about in Erik Reece’s Utopia Drive.
Nov. 18 – Try to make another visit to GOE. (Again, I was unable to visit the community.) For this deadline, try to learn more about GOE 2.0. Have a webpage about the goals for the new community and talk about how it is on a considerably larger scale, in comparison to the small community GOE has now. Discuss problems and possibilities of this larger scale.
Nov. 20-25 – Start to make finishing touches. Look back on videos and/or webpage designs and make sure they are what I want to have on the finished project. Make sure all links are working correctly.
Nov. 27- Dec. 2 – Finish project so that it is done by the time presentations (on Dec. 4 and Dec. 6) take place.
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Disclaimer: Though everyone else in our Into the Woods class has a partner, I am working on this project alone. Because of this, I may struggle with the load that I have. As I continue working on this project, I may makes changes to previous information and/or make changes to deadline dates. Furthermore, I may have to move deadlines. However, the deadlines will be completed. As I said previously, I also may go back and add more to information I have previously posted, as more information presents itself to me.