Hello! My name is Melissa Chwalinski-Gordon, the founder of Counter Culture Collective. Nice to meet you.
A compilation of many years of experience, with all kinds of people, has turned into a passion for teaching foundational self care, domestic and workplace skills, fostering multigenerational and interdependent communities, social advocacy and public service. This organization works independently as well as collaboratively with other organizations to better meet the needs of our communities regardless of location, background, or socioeconomic status. Through a variety of programs, we and community partners have come together to educate, encourage and empower those in need of foundational life and workforce skills. These skills empower our program participants to live fulfilling, successful, and holistically healthy lives. This, in turn, creates a functionally elevated society and workforce.
Feel free to click on any of the icons below to explore the programs and services we offer.
Quality of life directly correlates with the quality of what we consume and the sustainable cultivation of it. We work toward educating our communities about what clean, high quality food is, how and where to source it and how to prepare it in a nutritious as well as delicious way as affordably as possible. Meals are such a significant part of our life and health. When we make changes in that area it usually triggers other lifestyle changes as well. We partner with life skills education providers to offer additional encouragement and practical advice on how to navigate the connective lifestyle changes that come with a decision to begin a healthier lifestyle with food. Portions of this education are delivered in location workshops but for ease of accessibility and to ensure everyone has the support they need at their fingertips. We have created and compiled digital classes and cooking demonstrations for ease of use anytime. We thank one of our local nonprofit organizations, Well Fed, for coming alongside us as a program sponsor and community outreach partner.
We believe our maturing community is a vibrant and rich resource to the world around us. We are committed to assisting our 65 and up population in living their life, as and where they desire, with dignity, comfort, competency and confidence. We do this in a variety of ways. Some of which are through education and support services such as:
Hand over hand, side by side, or even done for you task completion
Actionable lifestyle improvement coaching and support
Virtual assistant/personal assistant/executive assistant services
We strive to facilitate our elders becoming more successfully integrated into multi-generational, interdependent communities. Through an empowered elder population projects like "Reclaiming Community" could be nationally implemented successfully. This process sometimes involves some updated life and relationship skills training to allow for better understanding and connection across generations. Other ways we celebrate and tap into the wisdom of our elders and integrate that wisdom into the day to day lives of coming generations is through capturing their, orated, lived experiences. These "Porch Light Talks" are often real life tales of having a vision and overcoming obstacles to reap the joys of success to come later on. Sometimes we even have the opportunity to capture the story of a common person that has been behind the scenes or alongside some of the most remarkable, even famous, people or events. We feel this is a priceless yet rapidly disintegrating resource from which many generations to come could draw inspiration, encouragement and hope from. We work to capture these stories, produce them digitally to preserve them, and make them easily available for the greater good of humanity.
Cultural experiences are essential for learning how to integrate diversity in a community. Travel provides priceless education about different cultures and geographical terrain. Through the extra special journey of one lucky and devoted support animal as well as the food and travel adventures of his furless family and friends we share all we learn with those seeking low anxiety, comfortably accessible, resource conscious, high quality travel experiences.
Humans were designed to live in interdependent communities but as time has passed and many changes have happened in our world we have become more hyper independent and isolated making us less able to engage in healthy community practices in sustainable and supportive ways. This has left many people with rapidly declining health and well being. Our desire is to both create and come alongside existing established micro-communities to strengthen them through teaching healthy life and self care skills, multigenerational interdependence practices, and functional community relationship skills. Many hands make light the load and a warm smile comforts a weary soul.
Life, social and work skills education through an online, low cost, self-led curriculum in a like minded learning community. This will help adults of all ages be more adequately prepared to live a functional and fulfilled life interdependently. Our learning program will not only be for post high school graduates but for all ages. Our curriculum focuses on the following seven foundational pillars of life: Spirituality, Mindset Development, Physical Health, Emotional Well-Being, Relational Success, Financial Stability and Vocational Satisfaction. There will eventually be hybrid program options offered on our permaculture focused micro farm for those wanting a more hands on and tactile experience . You must love animals for that adventure :)
Ways to support our nonprofit efforts
Currently we are working to raise $24,000 to cover our annual basic opperations expenses. During our grass roots build period we depend on the support of our community. As mentioned before, the more hands that carry the load the lighter it becomes. What level of participation in these programs are you able to contribute?
Will you be one of:
80 people at $25 monthly
40 people at $50 monthly
20 people at $100 monthly
8 people at $250 monthly
4 people at $500 monthly
2 people at $1,000 monthly
or
1 person to cover the entire $24K
Any one time gift is absolutely welcome also. See the links below to make your contribution now.
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We welcome any individual or business interested in supporting our initiatives to equip and elevate the community and workforce. Click the button below to choose your donation amount.
Until our organization has had the opportunity to be engaged with far and wide, enabling our bootstrapped efforts to become self sustainable, we rely on the support of those in our community that see the need for our services and are willing to support our efforts. Thank you in advance for paying it forward. MCGI is a registered nonprofit with the state of Arkansas and is currently awaiting our own 501(c)3 status approval. In the meantime our Unboxing Better program is qualified for tax exempt donations thanks to a fellow organization offering us fiscal sponsorship as well as program partnership. If you would be interested in a short term agreement to do the same for a short period of time on any of our other programs please let us know.