EarthShips Land in Philadelphia

By BOBBIE BELL

Rashida Ali-Campbell, founder and executive director of nonprofit organization Love Loving Love is getting an all expense paid headquartered Earthship office to support her mission to reduce violence in Philadelphia.

“I was blown away. For them to offer to help us with this endeavor, we felt like we didn’t deserve it; we were truly humbled,” said Campbell in regards to Michael Reynolds, the creator of Earthships, and his family. The space will distribute food and feature a deescalation room that provides tools to reduce violence by confronting trauma and stress, according to Campbell.

Jonah Reynolds, Earthship bio technician at Earthship Biotecture and son of Michael Reynolds, had answered the call for help when Cambell reached out via email after watching a film called “Garbage Warrior” on the Sundance Channel, where she had learned about Earthships, sustainable buildings that run off of resources from the environment.

“When I saw that movie in 2009, I was blown away,” she said, using a favorite phrase. “We were looking for office space.”

Campbell was fascinated by earthships and immediately started creating one in her backyard.

“We’ve been trying to get the land which we got last year, and now we’re fundraising for the materials,” said Jonah Reynolds in a recent interview with the Brooklyn News Service. “To bring in kids in that type of environment, that cares about them and takes care of them. That’s better than antidepressants.”

 Reynolds said they are set to start building the Earthship next August.

“She lives for the people,” said Carol Lovett, one of Campbell’s clients and a domestic violence survivor. “This has been a dream to her for several years. She has always talked about being self sufficient, not depending on anything else.”

Lovett has known Campbell for a few years, turned her life around, and is now “paying it forward” herself with the establishment of her own nonprofit intended to be transitional housing for domestic violence survivors.

“Since her lifestyle rejuvenation counseling, she has lost weight, got her real estate license, got ordained in church, and is planning to start a shelter for women who were victims of domestic abuse,” said Campbell. “We have also worked with her daughter and granddaughter and mother.”

“Talking with Rashida who I believe is a good listener, it was easier for me to understand what was going on in my life,” said Lovett. “So for that reason, I’m paying it forward. Everyone should have the opportunity to start over.”

“We wanted to build a room where young people can come talk to professional health coaches and get immediate needs met,” said Campbell.

Campbell has seen firsthand the violence students in Philadelphia face, as their mission began by addressing violence in public high schools and stemmed into a larger mission.

“When we started going into the schools in 2009, we saw that there was a need to go further and we found ourselves helping their mothers with lifestyle changes. That escalated into a desire to see love brought back into school with love,” said Campbell.

Reynolds noted what a rewarding experience it is getting to build an earthship for someone. “Any kind of disaster when we’re able to provide a shelter that takes care of people, and we have students with us, and we see people’s hearts go off, that’s the beautiful thing,” said Reynolds.

Campbell believes that bringing children and their families into that kind of space will be a transformative experience and “feel like heaven.”

“We felt what better place to serve people as a nonprofit. Why would we want to put our services into a building that does not give anything back?” said Campbell.

Reynolds agrees with Campbell that the community entering that space will benefit. “The most beautiful thing about it is when you’re in a building that takes care of you. Humans are products of our environment, being in that is liberating,” said Reynolds.

“This could very well be a new way of life,” said Lovett.

Campbell said housing in underrepresented communities in the area face many disadvantages. “Water in Philadelphia has fecal matter in it, drugs in it,” said Campbell. “We believe our participants behave the way they do because of the water they’re drinking.”

“Earthships catch water from the sky; that goes into a planter. The plants clean it; it treats it,” said Reynolds. “Here we are flushing our waste with drinking water, that’s not civilized,” said Reynolds.

Earthships would be “a stunning example of what housing could be here in Philadelphia,” said Campbell.

Reynolds compared the reduced stress of living in an Earthship to “the most beautiful thing in the world next to falling in love and having a baby.”

“Helping someone in a positive way, instead of us going at each other and hurting one another, we can work to uplift the community,” said Lovett. “It’s for our children.”

After over ten years of being a nonprofit and being awarded no grants or loans, an Earthship home office is soon in Campbell’s future.

Photo of Rashida Ali-Campbell and Jonah Reynolds taken by David Campbell