Join us in forging a new model of community life where spiritual conversation and service to others go hand-in-hand. Each of our core community building activities aims to foster inner transformation and create wider circles of inclusion. Together, neighbors cultivate a sense of collective ownership for the spiritual, social and economic well-being of their community. Gainesville Bahá’í community members are involved in the following social and economic development projects:

Gary Hankins; Community Land Trust:

In 2017 Communities That Care Community Land Trust (www.communitiesthatcareclt.org) serving Alachua County emerged out the Gainesville-4-all citizen dialogue on equity and justice. A CLT is a democratically governed, regionally based non-profit corporation (501(c)(3)). Through an inheritable and renewable long-term lease, the trust removes land from the speculative market and facilitates multiple uses such as workforce housing, village improvement, sustainable agriculture, and recreation. Individual or organizational leaseholders own the buildings and other improvements on the land created by their labor and investment, but do not own the land itself. Resale agreements on the buildings ensure that the land value of a site is not included in future sales, but rather held in perpetuity on behalf of the regional community. The result is the perpetual affordability of the real estate held by the CLT, a marked reduction in the amount of future subsidy (taxes) required to support affordable housing and home ownership/wealth building for households that could not otherwise qualify to buy a home on the open market.
In 1967 in Albany, Georgia, Robert Swann, a pacifist and builder who later founded the Schumacher Center for a New Economics, joined Slater King, President of the Albany Movement and a civil rights activist, out of a common concern to provide access to land for Black farmers in the rural South. Together they created the first Community Land Trust (CLT).

Larry Schwandes; Fruit Tree Project:

In 2020 a fruit tree project was started under the direction of The Partnership for Strong Families which is funded by the Federal government. It was initiated by Larry Schwandes and Erica Reed at the Cone Branch Library in Gainesville. Fruit trees are being planted for low income families in the 32641 area code of East Gainesville; one tree per family trees are free. It is a 3-year project with a monitoring program and free fertilizer. Ten trees have been planted as of July 2020. A second project has been started in Citrus County.