– Mission –

Providing skills-based virtual disaster relief to support families and communities affected by the current health crisis, economic crisis, and skills crisis. 

Building community resilience through innovative workshops and information on: food preparation, food preservation, homesteading, gardening, community building, and leadership development. 

Due to Covid-19, we are currently advocating and modeling a “local job creator” business model. By hiring aggressively we are able to temporarily employ people who are suddenly out of work, paying them to rapidly adapt CKW to quarantine conditions so that we can rise to the occasion. If you are a business or individual that is in no immediate financial danger, join us in creating local jobs that strengthen resilience and quite possibly save lives. You may never have another opportunity in which spending a little extra money could make such an important difference to the safety of you and your community. 

 #grassrootsgreennewdeal #localjobcreator #buylocal #supportlocal #mutualaid

Chrisso Babcock

Head Honcho

Around 2010, I realized that I wanted to learn how to grow all of my own food. I wanted to be fully self sufficient — or at least, have the skills to be self sufficient if needed. And from my first growing season, I began teaching these new found skills.

Over the last 10 years, I have lived in a wide variety of intentional communities, farms, homesteads, and communal houses. As a full-time homesteading apprentice in Vermont I learned to garden, save seeds, milk and care for goats, make a variety of cheeses, and slaughter and butcher. I began making homemade wines, meads and sourdough breads. When I returned to the Hudson Valley, I started a non-hierarchical homesteading collective of 15; we kept goats, chickens and a large garden, and lived with no electricity, building huts in the woods and cooking every meal communally on a homemade wood stove in our outdoor Kitchen. I began attending yearly Rainbow Gatherings and learning the systems and infrastructure required to feed thousands of people in the woods for cheap.

As well as learning techniques for food and living, I began to dive more deeply into herbalism, health and wellness. I was part of a New Paltz herb farm and collective of herbalists, formulating and creating tinctures, salves, and selling them at the New York City Green Market. I returned to school to become a massage therapist. I became deeply involved with local Weston Price chapter. I attended workshops with experts in fermentation, nutrition, herbalism and permaculture.

I currently live in Rosendale, where for the last 3 years I have been gradually turning my half-acre home and property into a homestead. I am also a bartender, a community organizer, and an artist.

I look forward to working with you and your family to help you meet and exceed your Kitchen or Homesteading goals.

Best,
Chrisso Babcock

Collaborators