*Here is a clip of round singing at the Argenta Friends School Reunion in summer 2009 in Argenta.
http://www.indiegogo.com/Argenta-A-Community-fi...
*Update - June 17, 2011.
I wrote an article for the Canadian Friends Historical Association newsletter "Meetinghouse." It is on P.4 and 5 here http://www.cfha.info/20111.pdf
I have applied again this year to Canada Council for the Arts and BC Arts Council for funding. Last year I was not successful with them and so I am trying again this year as well looking for other sources of funding.
The funding campaign on this web page is over. Until the next campaign is launched, you can contribute directly to the film by sending a check or money order to “Peter Schramm” at:
Peter Schramm
High Street Place
#308-38 High Street
Nelson, BC Canada V1L 6E7
If you are in Canada and would like a tax-deductible receipt, you can make a donation of $25 or more by
sending check or money order to “WE Graham Community Service Society” (please indicate it is for “Argenta
film” and include your return address) to:
WE Graham Community Service Society, Box 10, Slocan, BC V0G2C
In 1952, a group of Quakers left California and came to Argenta because the militarism, materialism and anti-communist paranoia in the United States during the McCarthy period were not in tune with their pacifist values and desire to live simply. They set out to create a life and world of their own, eventually settling in Argenta in the remote and beautiful British Columbia wilderness.
In 1959 they established the Argenta Friends School, a boarding school where the students often lived with the teachers and learned homesteading skills like milking cows, chopping firewood, gardening and cooking on a wood stove. A micro-hydro plant provided electricity to a significant number of households and a community freezer preserved much of the food that people produced themselves.
In the 1960’s and 70’s, the Quakers welcomed Vietnam War draft dodgers and resisters and the Back-to-the-Land movement was in full swing. Coupled with the hippie movement, Argenta was a vibrant, politically active community with almost a cosmopolitan atmosphere in a rural area!
The Argenta Friends School closed in 1982, but the community has stayed intact and retains a very peaceful, natural quality. Some development is threatening the area. Last summer, the Argenta Friends School held a reunion and it was amazing to see what the students are doing in the world today and how deeply effected they were by their experience at the Friends School and in Argenta. The alumnae work around the world engaged in professions as diverse as a World Bank economist, an archeologist, a PhD in populations biology, UN development work in Kenya, East Africa, and an international labour organizer.
I felt it was crucial to capture this history at this time as many of the Quakers and Argenta elders have died or are in their 80’s and 90’s and I feel the world just needs this message at this time of how to live more locally, consume less energy, and retain your idealism, passion and belief that it is possible to make change and do good and have fun doing it.
I have raised about CAN$23,000 in the last 3 years from Columbia Kootenay Cultural Alliance (Columbia Basin Trust), Regional District Central Kootenay and the Osprey Community Foundation. I did receive significant contributions from four former Argenta Friends School students, which was wonderful. Feel free to share with anyone you think would be interested.