Each month, like a roving band of grain threshers or barn raisers, my family of four and two other households descend upon one of our homes to paint, build, garden and clean, and to eat, drink and be merry.

This is our work cooperative, still going strong after a dozen years. In my mind the origins of our work party are obscure, lost in the passing of years and the raising of children. I do remember, however, Prentiss glibly announcing one day that we should get together to work on each other’s houses. One of those great ideas, I recall thinking. But an infant, a toddler and hardly any time to visit – let alone work – with my friends seemed the kiss of death to such disciplined intentionality. And yet, all three households had purchased new houses within the previous year. We lived in Minneapolis, in houses under 2,000 square feet, and had very modest home repair skills.

Prentiss and Amy’s house seemed to need a lot of work – until Laura and I bought ours! Thank goodness Diane and Allan’s house was in better shape. Perhaps it was the innocence and absurdity of my saying, “yes, we’ll fix up one room each month (!)” that caused Prentiss to roll his eyes and suggest the co-op. Or maybe it was Diane’s expertise and experience as a community organizer that actually led to scheduling our first work party.

Once launched, the work parties have continued almost without fail, every month, for a few reasons:

• All six adults were friends and are cooperatively minded, having lived in cooperative households, shopped and volunteered in food co-ops, and worked for socially progressive causes.
• Three households, with four children among them, seems to be just the right size party to schedule.
• Our aims have always been modest: three hours of work each month
• We always share food before we work and a meal after our work is done.

As the years roll on, we’ve come to focus less on accomplishing an ambitious agenda of tasks, and more on having fun. We meet Saturday or Sunday, at 9am or 2pm, and settle into drinks, a snack and conversation. Sometimes we don’t start work for almost an hour. Sometimes the kids can’t make it, or an adult has to shuttle kids to events or is even absent altogether. And for a year Prentiss and Amy lived in Chicago and missed our parties. In all these cases we don’t complete as many house/garden tasks, but we don’t worry the way we did in the beginning years.

Those early years found us digging new gardens and hauling rocks for three hours, stripping wallpaper and repairing concrete steps. At recent parties we’ve planted window boxes and trimmed raspberry bushes. The kids help out, and we all learn some new skills. Most importantly, our children are experiencing an old model of cooperation updated into a workable, simple form for our modern, urban age.