Celebrating Revolution | 250 years of independence

||| FROM SUZANNE OLSON for OPAL COMMUNITY LAND TRUST |||

As we mark the 250th anniversary of our nation’s independence, OPAL Community Land Trust homeowners and volunteers, along with friends from the Orcas Island Food Bank, marched in our island’s Fourth of July parade chanting: “Hope, not fear! We all belong here!”

July 4th marks the anniversary of the Continental Congress adopting the Declaration of Independence in 1776. While Congress officially voted in favor of independence on July 2nd, it was on July 4th that delegates formally adopted Thomas Jefferson’s document explaining why they were separating and their foundational belief that all people are entitled to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

The fight for those fundamental rights of our independence is alive and tangible today. The community land trust movement, which grew out of the civil rights movement in the early 1960’s, is a revolutionary model for community ownership of land – in perpetuity – removing barriers to make it accessible to people for affordable housing, community-based nonprofit organizations, economic development and sustainable agriculture.

When a small group of islanders began to organize what would become OPAL Community Land Trust in 1989, they were motivated by wanting to keep their friends and neighbors in their beloved home community, where so many were being priced out of housing. Today, about 8% of the year-round Orcas Island population lives in an OPAL home (204 households), including roughly 20% of school-aged children. With more than 100 acres in community ownership, OPAL levels the playing field on Orcas for the people who work in essential service jobs, own small businesses, and provide education and public safety for the island.

This chapter of our 250-year democracy is fraught with challenges to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” OPAL is doing its part to maintain the character, vibrancy and diversity of the Orcas Island community by answering the ongoing need for permanently affordable
housing. What we do here in the top left corner of our nation may be small, but the impact of the cooperative community land trust model ripples throughout the nation and the world.

Learn more: www.opalclt.org