Fellowship Community

About the Fellowship

Hill Top House is the heart of the Fellowship Community. It is the central care facility where those needing most care live. There are 34 beds for such care. If one were to approach this building early in the day, it would be possible to find many of those who are the most ill being cared for. However, if one were to enter at mid-morning or mid-afternoon at “snack” times, then it would not be at all certain that one was in a care facility. At snack time, in the Snack Foyer, all kinds of individuals of all ages mingle to have a bite to eat. The older person is there. Those who have been out in the garden are there, often those more in midlife. Mothers with their very young children appear from nowhere, while the Child’s Garden with those between three and seven years of age may wonder through. During the school year the youngsters between seven and eighteen are at the local Waldorf School in the morning, but are at snack in the afternoon. Just before or just after snack there may be activities in the adjacent central living room, the Goethe Room. Handwork, singing, piano music, or small and large meetings all take place in this large room that can accommodate over one hundred individuals. At all three meal times, all ages mingle and meet in the central dining room which is “down the hall” from the Goethe room and the Snack Foyer. In the evening there again may be a small snack for those who want it, and again there can be a host of different events taking place in the Goethe room. Noteworthy is that this central facility, as the heart of the community beats with the activities that continually stream towards it and through it.

With such a centrally located care facility those who are the most ill and require the most care are taken up in the flow of community activities. Those who are most in need are not hidden away in some corner, but become a part of the ongoing life of the community. A central laundry, the central mail dispensing activity, the central bathing room, the central medicine dispensing room, the central telephone, the central Snack Foyer and the Goethe room all are “central”. This brings life and activity into the midst of the rather inactive older persons daily fare. Such a setting permits a good deal of “normal” human interchange. The older person wakes up and soaks up the activity of the youngsters and the variously aged co-workers. The youngster learns to become more quiet in consideration of the older person. For the children who are born and raised in the community, Hill Top House becomes the home of many grandparents. The older person becomes a part of the life of the children in the community. Illness also becomes a part of the life of all and does not dominate the circumstance that is so much permeated with healthy activities.

It may surprise many to learn that children can take illness and death into their stride if parents come to do so. With a mixture of ages, a mixture of activities in the whole community, and the mixture of healthy and ill, it can at times be such that one has no sense that one is in a care facility while in Hill Top House. The mood and the atmosphere of such a setting stands in strong contrast to that which is to be found in many a long-term care facility. The effort is of course to stimulate very new ideas about the care of human beings who may be ill for many years. Such individuals in this setting continue to grow in their inner life, and to many a visitor the older community members look alive and surprisingly young.

It should not be overlooked that when one visits the basement of Hill Top House it is possible to find a small therapeutic center for massage, therapeutic baths, dentistry, podiatry, and ophthalmology. These therapeutic activities not only help those who need specialty care, but, as well, these special therapies assure that those who live in this facility are not left alone, separated from the movements and activities of life.

If one steps outside Hill Top House it is possible to view the whole of the “central campus” of the community. Around Hill Top House are a number of buildings where work activities go on—a pottery, a garage for minor repairs, a building where larger car maintenance takes place and where harvested produce is stored, a chicken coop full of chickens with a chicken run as well, and an elongated building where a print-shop is located. So, in a way, the heart of the community is surrounded by facilities where worthwhile activities take place on a regular basis.

A second ring of buildings exist on the central campus. In these buildings are living facilities for older members in the community and single co-workers or co-worker families. In addition, each building on this campus has activities where productive work can take place and where young and old can be busy together or alone. A space for a small kindergarten, a weavery, a processing room, a medical complex, and central administration facilities are present in one or the other of these buildings. Activity and life is built into every dwelling.

So the central campus has been built up with a core care facility, a ring of activity areas, and a second ring of living facilities in which again activities, work activities can take place. The older person is not removed from life. Co-workers and their children live amongst worthwhile activities.

If one walks through woods or rides on the inner community road, it is possible to journey north to the “north campus”. There, on the north campus, lie more houses for single co-workers and for those with families. Each building may house one or more families, and each building provides space for work activities—wood and metal working. Part of the north campus extends into forty acres of fields and gardens which are part and parcel of the community in its work with the land.

Now if one returns to the central campus and walks to the west, one comes to the Duryea Farm of the Fellowship Community. The farm is in the process of being built up with animals, gardens and small fields. A 350 tree apple orchard is a significant part of this “west campus”. Again this is all a part of the extensive work with the land.