From October 2005 to May 2006, co-directors, Eric Conn, Katie Nixon, and Britt Walker held the collective vision to learn and share methods of sustainability from aboard their 30’ demonstration vessel. This journey aboard the Broadened Horizons sailboat took them over 1,800 miles from Tennessee to the Bayous of Louisiana and back where they provided hurricane relief assistance and environmentally friendly solutions to rebuilding in disaster zones.
They worked in areas as diverse as:
DEMONSTRATING solar and wind technologies from aboard the Broadened Horizons Sailboat.
- Utilizing and acting as a working example of these technologies by generating electricity through solar panels and a wind generator
- Creating heat and hot water through creative use of an efficient wood-stove
- Cooking with the sun in a mobile, passive solar cooker
COORDINATING and leading the revival of the Meg Parry Bioremediation and Community Garden in New Orleans
- Learning and teaching methods of removing toxic ground contamination through bioremediation utilizing plants, fungi, and bacteria
- Growing and providing organic produce to community members and several volunteer centers
- Planting seeds in recycled water bottles for community distribution
- Composting food scraps from volunteer centers to build healthy soils
WORKING in solidarity with Biloxi-Chitimacha and Pointe-au-Chien Native American tribes by Working with Indigenous leaders through their Tribal Council, Elder Committees, and their community members to determine proper courses of action
- Coordinating over 100 volunteers from across the nation into collective relief efforts
- Creating and coordinating a volunteer center with gravity-fed showers, composting toilets, and kitchen facilities, constructed from recycled materials
- Coordinating the kitchen and cooking for up to 80 volunteers at a time
GIVING out hundreds of packets of organic vegetable, herb, and flower seeds to individuals and communities
VISITING numerous communities and organizations working on issues of sustainability
VOLUNTEERING to conduct a bioremediation project with Harmony House, a medicinal herb garden and community center in Gulfport, MS Taking soil samples, analyzing results, and suggesting courses of action
If you would like to read the futher about this project feel free to browse through the ships log from the trip:
