About Sustainable Shenandoah

Sustainable Shenandoah
Building Community Self Sufficiency and Strengthening
the Local Economy of Page County

Sustainable Shenandoah is a group of like minded people, businesses and organizations located in Page County, Virginia with sustainable localization as our mission. We are approaching this in two different ways: providing for members of our group, and providing for the broader community.

Sustainable Shenandoah is concerned with finding solutions that will insulate us from volatile financial markets, oil and commodities prices and the possible results, starting with soaring food costs and likely shortages given corporate agriculture's complete dependence on these inputs. The solution? Develop local resources!! Our group is concerned with learning about how to grow sustainably (with a commitment to move toward no petroleum or chemical inputs,) how to achieve energy independence, how to cowshare and make cheese, learning about wild edibles, etc. We hold meetings every Wednesday at Rainbow Hill in Luray and the schedule for October is:

October 1 - film screening 'The Power of Community - How Cuba Survived Peak Oil'
October 8 - Solar Power guest speaker Dr. John Dedman
October 15 - Garden Planning guest speaker Paul Dennison
October 22 - film screening 'King Corn'
October 29 - Guest Speaker Shenandoah Sustainable Technologies President Zach Fettig (getting off grid in your new or existing home, rain and greywater management, etc.)

Sustainable Shenandoah's broader mission is to localize Page County. This is a tremendous undertaking described below, and is separate from our group meetings. Please contact me (Susan Guest, 540-743-7040) if you would like more information on the localization model coming into being for Page County...and come to Rainbow Hill every Wed. at 6PM for dinner and camaraderie, and the meetings start at 7PM!!
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Sustainable Shenandoah, L.L.C. is a for profit organization with a not for profit component structured to foster a county wide alliance of local citizens, organizations, independently owned businesses and primary employers, as well as the county government, united together to develop a more resilient, self reliant Page County.

We are a catalyst for the (re) localization of Page County and the development of local self reliance in food, water, energy, shelter, transportation, manufacturing, systems of care, and economy, to re-engineer community to ‘The Way It Used To Be, Only Better.’

MISSION, GOALS, AND VALUES
Sustainable Shenandoah’s mission statement is:

The sustainable localization of Page County through partnering with similarly aligned individuals and organizations while seeking to identify, fund and coordinate sustainable business endeavors.

It must be stressed that including ‘Page County’ in the mission statement is NOT a limiting factor but simply used to provide a geographic boundary which in turn will define population, available natural resources, and an inventory of available goods, services, and talents. When we do not find resources internally we will seek to provide funding for qualified candidates willing to reskill outside of the community in order to bring the skills back and enhance our local endeavors.

The word ‘localization’ means providing for local needs locally. This is a far reaching vision where, over time, we will strive to develop a sustainable infrastructure incrementally according to a hierarchy of needs, beginning with food, while integrating and working out to water, shelter, energy, health and waste management, and eventually encompassing manufacturing and transportation. To provide for nutritional requirements not readily able to be met in Page County (coffee, citrus, etc.) we will seek to foster Fair Trade relations and over time source alternative local sustainable products (tea, rosehips.)

Sustainable Shenandoah initially seeks to intellectually protect and fund prototype operations in support of clean, holistically grown food to include the following areas: fruit and vegetable operations (greenhouses, gardens, orchards,) a microdairy operation, sustainable egg and meat poultry production, grass fed beef, hog, lamb, and buffalo, local slaughter capacity, and additionally intends to acquire a distribution center.

As these initial businesses prove successful, our intent is to franchise these operations throughout Page County (and further) to meet the nutritional requirements of the entire population of the county. To the extent that local, sustainable, organic production exceeds community demand at any time, our intent will be to source appropriate markets outside the local community to achieve profitability requirements which may be modified as local demand increases to meet local supply. We will also seek to franchise the model of Sustainable Shenandoah to like minded communities around the world.

We strive to provide food security to Page County and to lessen and eventually eliminate reliance on necessities that are currently brought into Page County. This is not paranoia but simple prudence as we face an uncertain economic era brought about by volatile fuel and commodities prices that leave us vulnerable to events outside our control.

Look for future announcements concerning our local banking and self insurance initiatives in support of sustainable community localization.