Floating Homes - build 20 floating homes. Ten of these homes will be housing for homeless veterans. HFV will rent the remaining ten homes on Airbnb to create a source of revenue for HFV. The floating homes will be made out of Expanded Polystyrene Infused Cement (EPIC) and have a minimum of 200 square feet.
Bees - build 100 beehives and train our veteran participants to manage the hives through the "Heroes to Hives" program at Michigan State University. These beehives will serve to pollinate the permaculture food forest, community gardens and produce marketable honey.
Flowers - grow 1,000 potted flowers sold at farmers' markets on Mother's Day and Veterans Day to produce a source of revenue for HFV.
Mushrooms - grow and market Shiitake and Oyster mushrooms using our small log waste and stumps.
Kenaf/Hemp - farm at least one acre of kenaf/hemp as a cash crop to produce fiber 20 times stronger than wood. This material will help us build more substantial stronger floating homes.
Lumber - run an operating sawmill (Norwood 36 HD) with the waste sawdust that HFV will use in composting toilets, slab used to make biochar, cut to sell, and make value-added products for sale. These marketable products will contribute to our revenue stream and create additional jobs for homeless veterans. In addition, our wood chipper will contribute biomass for making biochar, mulching fruit trees, and our community gardens.
Biochar - produce inoculated biochar that will be sold or used in our greenhouses with the excess integrated into the permaculture food forest. Addressing "Climate Change": This process involves the making of compost, compost tea, algae, and biochar production at scale done in a virtuous closed-loop restorative cycle. It is one of the best CO2 sequestration methods for addressing climate change. Biochar remediates the soil and can be used as an additive in the construction process. We will capture the heat in large water tanks to heat our buildings.
Compost - remediate the soil ongoing and use the compost for potting soil for flowers and gardens.
Worm Farming - produce worm casings for use in our gardens and to sell.
Gasification wood stoves - manufacture and sell these stoves and pizza ovens. The stoves will be used for heating and cooking in the floating homes as well. They are constructed out of Expanded Polystyrene Infused Cement (EPIC). We can recycle the waste stream of expanded polystyrene.
Livestock - use fish, chicken, cattle, goats, and sheep to implement regenerative soil practices to rebuild the soil while producing food sources. We put 1000 catfish in the lake spring of 2020 as a source of protein for our communities.
Bed and Breakfast - build a BnB to house our ongoing stream of teachers, students, and visitors to the learning center.