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Friday, February 27, 2009

The Scoop on Camphill...Part Two

Onto part two of our series on questions we receive about Camphill

"That's awfully far away, are you sure you want to go?"

In short, yes. We understand that it is in Pennsylvania and that yes, Pennsylvania is rather far away from Texas/Oklahoma. However, we wanted to get away from this area for a while. We're not saying it to be mean. We're not going away from anyONE, just craving a change of scenery. We actually decided that Camphill Soltane sounded amazing and wonderful and we wanted more information about it even before we knew that it was in Pennsylvania.

"Won't you be cold?"

Well, probably. Especially in the winter. However, I do have some experience with the winter up there (I lived pretty close to the Penn border in New York from ages 3 to 13). We'll have good warm winter coats, boots, gloves, earmuffs/hats, and scarves. It's all about layers. Promise we'll use our brains on this one ;)

"Are you crazy?"

I believe that this question was less a question about the sanity of our decision and more about the idea of willingly going to a climate that has snow. The answer, by the way, is no.

"How much does it pay?"

This is a VERY popular question from family. We aren't doing this for the money. With that said, we won't be left penniless afterward either. We have free housing and food the entire time we're there, plus after 3 months we'll have fully paid-for health insurance. We get a monthly stipend of $170 each. We won't have any bills to pay so we can save pretty much all of that each month.

We are actually going to be enrolled at Camphill as Americorps workers (Americorps is the same concept as Peacecorps, only you stay and work in the U.S. instead of going to another country). At the end of our time at Camphill we will have qualified for a full Americorps grant of $4,725.00 each for our year of full-time service. That grant can be used either to pay off student loans or toward tuition at an approved institution (there are lots of colleges and universities that accept Americorps grants). We have 7 years from the end of our service to use those funds.

Aaron doesn't have much in the way of federal student loans, but he can pay off what he does have and then use the rest toward his master's degree if he wants. I on the other hand have almost all federal student loans so I'll use mine toward those. Also, since we will be working in an Americorps program, our student loans will go into deferment just as if we were still in school which means we won't have to make payments on them and any time left in our grace period will still be there when we finish at Camphill. Most loans have a 6 month grace period after graduation and so since we're starting at the end of August we'll still have 3 months left once we leave Camphill before we'll need to make any payments.

I am very meticulous about money (I actually keep a hand-written ledger and budget). I'm also a good bargain hunter (not to brag or anything), and Aaron is a tightwad. Between the two of us we'll have plenty of money saved up before we ever leave for Pennsylvania.

We're so very excited about Camphill. We received our paperwork in the mail last week and I filled mine out the next day, but Aaron has been seriously swamped with school and work stuff, but already has a reminder set on his phone to fill his out on Sunday so we can mail them on Monday.

The next set of questions that I (or maybe Aaron) will answer are: "What about grad school?!", "Why aren't you getting a 'real job'?", "Will you be able to come back for _______?", and finally "What are you going to do after Camphill?"

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