Re-experience what your body can do; find the relaxation intrinsic to meaningful physical work; bring more beauty to this good earth. Come for all five days or as many days as you can spare. Pay by the sweat of your brow. If you have friends with skills and open hearts, invite them to join us.
Please bring work gloves and tools you know how to use. When you register, tell us what your skills are (e.g. carpentry, electrical, furniture repair, painting, sewing, gardening, lawn mowing, cleaning, or general physical labor) and what days you'll be here, so we can plan our work projects for the week. We thank you in advance, and we look forward to seeing you.
Who comes to Work Week? Last year Marjorie, age 69, a writer and Robert, a civil engineer and writer who is around the same age, built and shingled a porch roof and built a staircase; Charlotte, a lawyer around the same age, sewed curtains and covers for the couches; Bert, an electrical engineer in his 70s, along with Ben, a chap in his 20s, kept the wiring and outlets in good, safe condition. Mary, a poet and writing teacher at MIT, gardened, directed the tent raising or disassembling; Elon, a business executive around 50, worked on a few carpentry projects and kept the computer system in good order; Cy, a civil engineer who just turned 80, claims he only does what he wants now that he's retired. We're delighted he wanted to fell trees that were ready to come down, as well as build stone walls and wash dishes at every meal, all the while smiling happily to himself.
Though these examples include some of the older regulars, work week is Rowe's most intergeneration gathering. Campers not long out of Rowe Camp see this as a cool chance to return to the place they love. Work week folk range in age from their late teens to 80, but we welcome you to push the envelope on either end. The mix of us all eating, working, and playing together is wonderful. Join this happy, productive crew for a day or two or all five, but be careful, it can be addictive. Some of us have been doing this for years.