Hello!
Today I have a lot of grant-related things to do for The COMET. I’m going to be “pitching” the project to a panel of judges that will determine if it’s a good fit for their funds. I’m really excited about it! I’ve been practicing my intro, and it made me realize how incredibly complex The COMET project is. It’s just so far-reaching and multi-dimensional. This grant is particularly interested in how it socially engages with a community, which is what I love about The COMET: it’s engaging people all over the world through this website, and it’s benefiting my local community as people come to me for help doing their own sustainability projects. I’ve gotten lots of offers from volunteers that want to help me with the build process and in return learn the skills associated with tiny house building, interior finishing, and photovoltaic installation (to name a few). What I’m most excited about is the prospect of building my own small vacuum form, and then designing and fabricating my own urine diverter kit. This will allow me to show you all an awesome DIY project, and it will avail me to holding local workshops with my community where I explain how to build a DIY urine-diverting toilet, and I can give people the urine diverters (easily reproduced) to take home and build their own waterless toilet in their house!
It’s all about empowering people to take action. I want to de-mystify these processes and techniques, and make cost-prohibitive things available and affordable to everyone. Let’s get to it!
And as always, you can support The COMET and help make it happen by donating either on the “DONATE” page (click the little button) or by clicking on the button at the bottom of the Home page/the bottom of each post page.
Totally un-related:
The tow wiring on these old campers is always a MESS!
I was incredibly relieved and excited to find that the undercarriage of The COMET is metal and not roofing tar. It is all intact and in great condition. No holes and no sagging at all! This means there probably aren’t mice nesting in there. And it means I don’t have to replace it, which is awesome!!
Yesterday I received a check in support of The COMET project from a grant that I had applied to months ago. They never emailed me or contacted me to let me know that I was the recipient, so I was super surprised and SO HAPPY when I opened the mail! Things are really starting to happen! Thank you Hampshire College for supporting my work!
Also, another update: I was planning on purchasing a composting toilet for The COMET, as there are a few companies that make waterless composting toilets specifically for boats and RVs. After talking to a friend of mine and fellow camper enthusiast Hayden Cummings (he’s the guy I buy ALL of my campers from because he’s awesome…more on him later!) we decided to design and build our own composting toilets for our campers that use the existing bathroom infrastructure. That means saving money (the composting toilets for RVs are REALLY expensive) AND a great DIY project to show all of you!! I’m looking forward to that. I’ll be visiting him in his camper wonderland (you’ll see) in NYC soon, so keep an eye out for pictures and more on that “down the road” hehe.
I also also want to direct you all to my Sponsors page, where you will see that I have a new sponsor! On The Green Road – sustainable and off-grid camper buddies Cece Reinhardt and Brenda Daugherty, became my first official Sponsor the other day! Thank you, On The Green Road! Check out my Sponsors page for more on them, and stay tuned for an in-depth post about them coming up soon! They are really lovely ladies doing amazing things with their camper: http://www.greenrvlife.com. More on them later!
Okay that’s all the updates for right now…later on today I’ll be posting “Tips for buying your first vintage camper, PART 1 and PART 2”, where I discuss how to find a vintage camper and what to look for (and watch out for and avoid!) when inspecting a potential camper project.
The Comet Camper 