About Us: History

-The Gaian-Mind project was initiated to provide an outlet for the arts, crafts, music, ideas, visions, and dreams of ecologically conscious youth. Scattered throughout southern California, our collective network of youth artists and musicians has for years done various regional ecological education, art, music, and multi-media work though we'd lacked a steady space to operate from and build a solid foundation. Our hard work was validated by a dream-like opportunity to set up a residence/ office/art-space/garden all in one property! 

-Several of us were looking to relocate in Long Beach and we happened upon 620 Pacific Ave in the heart of downtown.  We scraped together the funds and signed the first year lease agreement. A week later, we acquired all of our business licensing and permits so we could let our dreams officially come true: (in a nutshell) to run a multifaceted community space that features the poignant and insightful ecological messages of urban youth.
Below is a general list of what was experienced in the life of the Gaian Mind community center:

• A retail store front for our "do-it-yourself" recycled, re-used, wild-crafted, and harvested arts and crafts. We also ran a small franchise of Used Cardboard Boxes.com. We sold quality used cardboard boxes providing an earth-friendly alternative supply of boxes for moving and shipping.
• An array of multimedia resources including a video projector for screenings, a lending library and bookstore, various zines and other periodicals, videos, computer stations, etc. all available to our collective and the community.
• A space for workshops, seminars, lectures, and classes hosted by our collective, other organizations, and members of the larger community.
• A productive space for making d-i-y clothing, accessories, tools, toys, publications, websites, videos, etc. for sale in the shop and at mobile distro tables at events, concerts throughout So Cal., and through the web.
• Weekly vegan potlucks.
• Regular collective field trips to events, natural areas, educational gatherings, etc.
• A free food distro for collective and community members supplied by donations from the Harbor Area Farmer’s Markets.
• An overall context for the detoxification and empowerment of our community, our lives and our bodies down to the cellular level.

-After nearly a year of hard work we were notified by the Long Beach Redevelopment Agency that there were plans to redevelop the block. Luckily we were able to connect with members of the community who believed in our project and also felt opposed to the redevelopment of our block. For a moment there was a chance that backing could be found to counter with an alternative development plan that would integrate The Gaian Mind and the existing community garden. We were hopeful for long term investment of time, energy, and resources into our location but the stars just weren’t aligned for it.

-We received a long list of city-code violations that effectively banned virtually every activity and project we had running there. To comply with the city-code we’d have to dismantle every vital project we had going that was keeping us alive.

- We had to close down the space and scale back the operation to a small office/art and music studio space on the industrial edge of Long Beach. Though smaller and less publicly accessible, this space now provides the ability for youth musicians from the collective to rehearse amplified music and work on projects. Our online arts and crafts distro operates from new space enabling us to sustain a budget for projects and activities. 

We still do environmental education and gardening work throughout Southern California. We now have the advantage of being more mobile with less costs and stress.

- Our core adult staff members are currently developing their personal skills-ets from information technology, to herbal medicine, to bio-diesel conversion, to eco-art landscaping. In this cocoon phase we’re continuing to grow our network of Gaian-Minded artists, musicians, and other visionaries via the web. Our hope is to re-group and combine our sharpened skill-sets to continue more and better projects into the future.

- At present we collectively host and attend educational events, free school classes, and gardening projects which can be found on our calendar. We also host and maintain this online community website which ultimately is our most powerful and far-reaching project/resource.