currents.
Members and visitors gather for their regular meal at the community house. Members try to have dinner together every Wednesday and brunch every Sunday.
Bob Henninge works away carrying cinder blocks from the bed of his truck to a stack on the ground near a structure he’s working on. He’s building a workshop to accompany the new home he has built for his partner Rebecca and himself. As the sun sets he says he wont work much longer; in the colder months he tries to do most of his outdoor work in the warmth of the afternoon sunlight. Building homes is highly laborious work, especially for a man with 72 years of age as himself, but Bob has been building houses for decades, including the twelve homes at Currents.
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Bob is one of the founding members of Currents, an intentional community in Glouster, Ohio. In the 1970’s, Bob and his cohorts were involved in social activism and a regional food co-op network. From this involvement, the idea to homestead a place for activists and socially minded people developed. By 1981 Bob, his partner, and his friends purchased and moved onto 164 acres of farmland, and named it Currents.
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Bob Henninge recounts his experiences that lead to the creation of Currents.
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The community grew rapidly and had to overcome some issues along the way, says Bob. “When community meetings began to be as many as a hundred people and we're starting to get a little bit of internal politics and stuff like that, it was beginning to get a little contentious.”
Bob and the community contacted MNS, Movement for a New Society, a group that organized and facilitated the growth of nonviolent social movements. Bob says their assistance helped create the governance system that has kept Currents running for decades.
Children who reside at Currents play on the dock as other members have community dinner by the pond.
Today, nearly 40 years after its founding, Currents is home to 28 people, including eight children as young as seven years old, and two founding members in their 70s. Currents members work together to grow food, build community structures, and regularly cook and eat meals together. Solar panels, greenhouses, and compost toilets can be found around the community land, as well as twelve houses, a farmhouse, barns, playsets, and a dock with an overhang on their man-made pond.
“We've had a lot of different words to describe what we were trying to do over time; Intentional community is one, intentional family is another, cooperative homestead is another, base camp for social change activists is another,” Bob says. Though Currents has been described in different ways and has changed greatly since its inception 39 years ago, the community’s root ideals have stayed nearly the same— provide a sustainable and inclusive place for people and ideas to grow. Bob says, “We've been committed to consensus. That means major things won't go forward unless everybody agrees to it, or at a minimum agrees to register their different idea, but stand aside so the group can go forward.” This has been a major key to the longevity of Currents according to Bob.
Sara Estep brings food to community dinner by the pond. Sara is a renter who lives in the LilyPad house (back) with her husband and daughter. They've been at Currents for about 15 months.
Bob Henninge and other community members in the kitchen of the community house. Bob's roles mostly focus on keeping the physical land together— firewood, roads, and repair of infrastructure and machinery are some of the main aspects.
Children gather around Bob as he starts the fire.
Bob has lived at Currents for 39 years in the same house. Now, as he and his partner Rebecca age, he is working to complete his new home that is more easily accessible. Their current home requires a walk down a steep hill that can be treacherous, especially in muddy, snowy, or dark conditions. Bob has mostly maintained all of his mobility, but he says the new home will be more easily accessed by Rebecca and people with disabilities.
Accessibility to people with disabilities and elderly people is a goal that Intentional Communities are working toward globally, but it remains a challenge. Often the rural spaces and sometimes primitive facilities of intentional communities can be a barrier to people who wish to live there, or to people who have grown old living there like Bob. Some members have to leave their communities because they can no longer traverse land or have all of their needs met.
Bob’s ability to keep building homes, and the multigenerationality of Edges residents are two factors that have allowed folks to stay at Edges into their later years, and has greatly helped Edges persist and grow.
A hoophouse at Currents is illuminated by the setting sun.