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How to Visit Acorn Community
 Acorn is currently accepting visitors! If you are interested in visiting us, we ask that you follow a few procedures to ensure that your visit is pleasant for you as well as for us.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, do NOT just "drop in" or "show up" for any reason!!! Best case, this is kind of annoying. Worst, it gives us the creeps. Please respect that Acorn is our home, first and foremost - it's not a resort or a crash pad. When people drop in without an invitation, we ask them to leave. With that said, we LOVE to have visitors, and invite you to contact us! We can even take people occasionally on short notice (especially WWOOFERS), but PLEASE contact us by phone or email ahead of time to get an invitation.
There are generally three different types of visitors we host:
1) If you live nearby or expect to be in the area, day tours are available. Please contact us in advance and we'll let you know. We ask for a donation of $5 for a tour, though this is voluntary.
2) If you would like to come for a short-term visit (a day to a couple of weeks), we offer two options. If you are a WWOOFER or would like to do work exchange, there is no visitor fee for folks who work 4-6 hours a day, and we can schedule such visits anytime. If you just want somewhere to stay during travel or just want to see the community without working, we only schedule such visits for the last week of each month, and require a $10 per person/per day fee.
3) If you are interested in applying for membership, the required visit is three weeks. The charge for this is $65.00 for these longer visits, though this amount is completely based on ability to pay! We NEVER reject membershipping visitors based on inability to pay the visitor fee. Occasionally, if either you or the community needs more time to consider membership, the visitor period is extended (with no fee). Membership application visits should be booked a few weeks to a few months in advance.
4) If you are a parent and/or family with kids under 17, we encourage you to come for a short 2-4 day "mini-visit" if at all possible, prior to starting a regular visitor period. We ask families with kids to extend their visitor period to 4 weeks - this is due to the extra time children frequently take in adjusting to a new (and often very different!) environment, and also to allow the community extra time to fully assess how the family interacts with each other, other children in the community, and the community as a whole. We do try to be flexible in arranging visits and accomodating different needs - please contact our visitor liason to discuss family visits further!
We ask that parents refrain from using physical violence/discipline while at Acorn - while we recognize that there are variations in parenting style, we strive to communicate respectfully with our children and do not accept any type of violent communication in our community.
**Visitor Fee Information**
While we do rely on income from our visitor program, we are willing to lower or waive the fees for any of these visits if it's a problem - please don't let it keep you from coming!
**How to Visit**
Day tours can be booked over the phone or through e-mail. To take part in our Visitor Program we request that a letter of introduction be sent by email or snail mail before finalizing plans, even if you would just like to stay overnight. (Short-notice WWOOFERS can schedule by phone) After establishing initial contact with us we will ask you to write a detailed letter that will be posted for our community members to read. It is from this letter that we will decide to invite you to stay in our home.
Suggestions of what should be included in an introduction letter are: why you are interested in visiting Acorn and intentional communities in general; previous community experience (tell us about positive or negative experiences); job experiences and skills; work preferences and any physical limitations; education or field of study; hobbies & interests; political, dietary, or religious beliefs, if you feel comfortable sharing; your general background and what you're currently up to. Also please let us know the dates you would like to visit. The more details you provide to us about yourself, the more likely community members will feel comfortable inviting you to visit.
When we write or talk to you we may list the dates that are open as of that moment. However, things change fast, and until there is a clear confirmation of dates, a slot is NOT reserved. Once we have confirmed your visit, please let us know if your plans change so that we may offer that spot to someone else. We limit the number of visitor we take in at a time in order to provide a quality experience for both you and the members of the community.
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