Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage

Mission: Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage is a growing, rural, ecologically sustainable town.

From www.ic.org/directory/dancing-rabbit-ecovillage/:

Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage invites you to live, play, and work with us to help build a better world!

We founded Dancing Rabbit (DR) Ecovillage to discover how to live rich, vibrant lives while leaving an ecological footprint the planet can sustain. If you yearn to live a more fulfilling and sustainable life, we might be what you’re looking for.

By making sustainability the primary focus of our long-term vision and daily lives we’re creating a healthy alternative to modern mainstream US culture.

In 1997 the DR Land Trust purchased 280 acres in the rolling hills of northeastern Missouri. Since then we’ve been building a village from the ground up, creating homes, gardens, kitchens, and community infrastructure, not to mention the less-tangible necessities for a sustainable culture. We use consensus in our Village Council governance, value clear communication and peaceable co-existence with our neighbors, and continue to create our own songs, stories and traditions.

Members are responsible for meeting their own economic needs and do so in a wide variety of ways, primarily on-site (including telecommuting). Our popular and healthy local currency is used by all Rabbits and our neighboring communities as well. Our vision is to grow to the size of small town (500 - 1000 people), with businesses, residences, and agricultural areas radiating out from the central village green.

We build natural and green homes, use sun and wind for power, and run our cooperatively-owned vehicles on renewable electricity or biodiesel. Diets are individually chosen, but many prioritize local, organic, and in-season foods.

We strive to be good stewards of our land, reserving many acres for wildlife habitat. We are reintroducing native prairie plants to help revitalize our region’s biodiversity and have planted over 10,000 trees to restore our land, stabilize the riparian zone, and provide sustainable wood for our community.

We are made up of individuals, families, and subcommunities, cooperating with each other to varying degrees and sharing as much of our lives as we choose. We encourage the development of cohousing and cooperatives.

To allow for economic diversity and simple living, we keep lease rates low, have no buy-in fee, and membership dues are income-based.

Outreach and education are integral to our mission, and the primary focus of the ecovillage's own education and research nonprofit arm, the Center for Sustainable and Cooperative Culture. We're also home to the Fellowship for Intentional Community (publishers of this Directory and Communities magazine).

Interested in Dancing Rabbit? Contact us to arrange a visit, get on our e-mailing list, or apply for a work exchange stint or workshop. We actively seek new members to live, play and work with us, modeling change for the better.

A service of the Data Commons Co-op. The project has been supported by Equal Exchange, the Cooperative Charitable Trust, the USDA, and many others - thank you! Tech volunteers over the years include: Benjamin Bradley with support from GAIA Host. Ben Mauer with support from Quilted. Paul Fitzpatrick. Ronin Tech Collective, Brattleboro Tech Collective, Sligo Computer Services. Jason Lemieux. Default map tiles courtesy of MapQuest. Default map data (c) OpenStreetMap contributors, CC-BY-SA.