Sierra Blanca Eco-Village Farm Not Hopeful With Fundraising Campaign

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
texas-wide, Texas, United States of America (Free-Press-Release.com) January 25, 2012 -- The small town of Sierra Blanca, TX will be getting new residents just outside of it's city limits on remote desert land on April 1st 2012.
A recently launched fundraising campaign on the popular funding website Kickstarter.com seeks backers for Sierra Blanca Commune and it's efforts.

In a statement issued today via the group's website, Co-Founder James Keener related that he is "Not hopeful to meet our goal. While our goal amount is $20,000- we had hoped to grab attention and hopefully raise funds for our bee program. It all starts with the bees." He said, "The goal is to raise enough money to start the bee program. We hope to purchase bees. they are purchased in pounds. Three pounds total, with a queen. This is enough to start one hive. We are looking at starting five. The cost of each hive, the bees alone, will be $135 plus the costs of shipping. The total we need to raise for the bees alone is $675. There are then costs of our hive boxes, which we have found an independent maker where we can buy them for $50 plus shipping. The total cost of that is $325. It adds up quickly. After we get the funding for bees, that is IF we get the funding for the bees, we then need to bring in soil as our soil quality is poor and erect raised beds for organic growing. We are needing to purchase a whole dump truck of soil, which doesn't come cheap devoted to a remote area. The most inexpensive service we have found is $600. After the dirt is delivered, we need to buy timbers to build our raised beds. Our estimated costs in the building of those is $300."

Keener went on to say, "We face a lot of issues. The whole goal here is to grow organic gardens and study the vanishing bees, as bee farmers face an ongoing problem of a disorder that can't be explained. It could be environmental, or it could be the bees reacting to signal towers. We hope that through our program, we can study these issues, blog about them and make videos. The bees are needed to pollinate our gardens, which brings another issue. We need cedar privacy fencing on just one acre to completely enclose the area from natural predators that will seek to eat our chickens and feast on the plants. This presents an enormous issue. Without the fence, our operation will face difficulties. The cost of our fence, cement, and posts will be around $4,000."

In an attempt to attract donors, Keener went on to describe the groups issues.

"We have 20 acres of land that is deeded. We have to pay taxes, and our monthly fees of $158. We will also need to have water hauled in via tanks, of which we would like to purchase instead of rent to save money. We need to buy the water tanks and stands, a total of three, which will costs us in excess of $3,500, not to mention the fees associated with water delivery. We will also have free-range chickens, producing organic eggs. The goal is to produce enough food to feed needy families in the area. It's hard to get backing. So far, we have gotten a total of 10$. While we are extremely thankful for that 10$, it will only buy one bag of feed for the chickens. We also need funding to purchase a chicken coop, which will cost about $600. We've got a lot of expenses here, and need to find a way to raise funds. Unless we can attract some donors, with substantial donations, we have little chance of producing to the point that we hope too. It's a longshot, but we have utilized Twitter to attempt to contact celebrities with Green-Living backgrounds. To our surprise, we haven't had a response, or even a retweet. We use need a break. We have also contacted some Green businesses, and have been lucky enough to have two of them rewteet our Kickstarter Campaign. We had hoped for a few dollars from these businesses, but it does not look likely. We are also looking for seed companies that may be willing to send us some seeds for the gardens. It's a big challenge. It's a troubled economy, but if we could get several backers at 20$ or more each, we can come close to meeting our goal."

SBC announced that they will continually update their website at http://www.sierrablancacommune.webs.com with statuses on fundraising.

"We have 45 days to go, and it doesn't look hopeful unless we can get a few significant social networkers to not necessarily donate, but relay to their 60,000 Twitter followers what we are trying to do. If each one of them donated a dollar, we'd be three times our goal. We are just discouraged at this point. It doesn't look like we will come anywhere near $1,000 in donations."

The groups Kickstarter campaign can be found at: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sierrablancacommune/save-the-bees-through-organic-growing

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